CAT PREVIOUS YEAR ODD ONE OUT-

Question- 1

Five jumbled up sentences, related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd one out and key in the number of the sentence as your answer:

1. There is a dark side to academic research, especially in India, and at its centre is the phenomenon of predatory journals.

2. But in truth, as long as you pay, you can get anything published.

3. In look and feel thus, they are exactly like any reputed journal.

4. They claim to be indexed in the most influential databases, say they possess editorial boards that comprise top scientists and researchers, and claim to have a rigorous peer-review structure.

5. But a large section of researchers and scientists across the world are at the receiving end of nothing short of an academic publishing scam.

Explanation

Correct answer- 5

The correct sequence is: There is a dark side to academic research, especially in India, and at its centre is the phenomenon of predatory journals.
They claim to be indexed in the most influential databases, say they possess editorial boards that comprise top scientists and researchers, and claim to have a rigorous peer-review structure. In look and feel, they are exactly like any reputed journal. But in truth, as long as you pay, you can get anything published.
The passage talks about elements of predatory journals. 5, by talking about an academic scam, goes against the ideas expressed in it.

Question- 2

1. The legal status of resources mined in space remains ambiguous; and while the market for asteroid minerals is currently nonexistent, this is likely to change as technical hurdles diminish.

2. Outer space is a commons, and all of it is open for exploration, however, space law developed in the 1950s and 60s is state-centric and arguably ill-suited to a commercial future.

3. Laws adopted by the US and Luxembourg are first steps, but they only protect firms from competing claims by their compatriots; a Chinese company will not be bound by US law.

4. Critics say the US is conferring rights that it has no authority to confer; Russia in particular has condemned this, citing the US’ disrespect for international law.

5. At issue now is commercial activity, as private firms—rather than nation states—look to space for profit.

Explanation

Correct answer- 4

Option 4 is the odd sentence. The other options are talking about the legalities in relation to the resources mined in outer space while 4 is vaguely referring to rights conferred by USA.

Question -3

1. It has taken on a warm, fuzzy glow in the advertising world, where its potential is being widely discussed, and it is being claimed as the undeniable wave of the future.

2. There is little enthusiasm for this in the scientific arena; for them marketing is not a science, and only a handful of studies have been published in scientific journals.

3. The new, growing field of neuromarketing attempts to reveal the inner workings of consumer behaviour and is an extension of the study of how choices and decisions are made.

4. Some see neuromarketing as an attempt to make the “art” of advertising into a science, being used by marketing experts to back up their proposals with some form of real data.

5. The marketing gurus have already started drawing on psychology in developing tests and theories, and advertising people have borrowed the idea of the focus group from social scientists.

Explanation

Correct answer- 5

Sentences 3 and 4 are talking about neuro marketing. Sentences 1 and 2 are also thematically linked. Sentence 5 is the odd sentence out so, it is the answer.

Question- 4

1. The care with which philosophers examine arguments for and against forms of biotechnology makes this an excellent primer on formulating and assessing moral arguments.

2. Although most people find at least some forms of genetic engineering disquieting, it is not easy to articulate why: what is wrong with re-engineering our nature?

3. Breakthroughs in genetics present us with the promise that we will soon be able to prevent a host of debilitating diseases, and the predicament that our newfound genetic knowledge may enable us to enhance our genetic traits.

4. To grapple with the ethics of enhancement, we need to confront questions that verge on theology, which is why modern philosophers and political theorists tend to shrink from them.

5. One argument is that the drive for human perfection through genetics is objectionable as it represents a bid for mastery that fails to appreciate the gifts of human powers and achievements.

Explanation

Correct answer- 1

Other than sentence 1, the other sentences are talking about genetic engineering. So, (1) is the odd sentence out.

Question-5

1. They often include a foundation course on navigating capitalism with Chinese characteristics and have replaced typical cases from US corporates with a focus on how Western theories apply to China’s buzzing local firms.

2. The best Chinese business schools look like their Western rivals but are now growing distinct in terms of what they teach and the career boost they offer.

3. Western schools have enhanced their offerings with double degrees, popular with domestic and overseas students alike—and boosted the prestige of their Chinese partners.

4. For students, a big draw is the chance to rub shoulders with captains of China’s private sector.

5. Their business courses now largely cater to the growing demand from China Inc which has become more global, richer and ready to recruit from this sinocentric student body.

Explanation

Correct answer- 3

Option 3 talks about the western schools in particular whereas the other 4statements talk about the Chinese business schools in particular and the curses they offer and how the students are benefitting from that. Hence 3 is the odd one out.

Question- 6

1. A typical example is Wikipedia, where the overwhelming majority of contributors are male and so the available content is skewed to reflect their interests.

2. Without diversity of thought and representation, society is left with a distorted picture of future options, which are likely to result in augmenting existing inequalities.

3. Gross gender inequality in the technology sector is problematic, not only for the industry-wide marginalisation of women, but because technology designs embody the values of their makers.

4. While redressing unequal representation in the workplace is a step in the right direction, broader social change is needed to address the structural inequalities embedded within the current organisation of work and employment.

5. If technology merely reflects the perspectives of the male stereotype, then new technologies are unlikely to accommodate the diverse social contexts within which they operate.

Explanation

Correct answer- 4

Other than 4, all other sentences if arranged logically form a paragraph depicting gender inequality in workplace and how it has a severe effect on social contexts. 4 on the other hand addresses “the structural inequalities embedded within the current organisation of work and employment.” Hence it is the odd one out.

Question- 7

(1) Talk was the most common way for enslaved men and women to subvert the rules of their bondage, to gain more agency than they were supposed to have.

(2) Even in conditions of extreme violence and unfreedom, their words remained ubiquitous, ephemeral, irrepressible, and potentially transgressive.

(3) Slaves came from societies in which oaths, orations, and invocations carried great potency, both between people and as a connection to the all-powerful spirit world.

(4) Freedom of speech and the power to silence may have been preeminent markers of white liberty in Colonies, but at the same time, slavery depended on dialogue: slaves could never be completely muted.

(5) Slave-owners obsessed over slave talk, though they could never control it, yet feared its power to bind and inspire—for, as everyone knew, oaths, whispers, and secret conversations bred conspiracy and revolt.

Explanation

Correct answer- 3

Except sentence 3, the other sentences discuss the role of speech in conditions of slavery. So, 3 is the odd one out.

Question-8

(1) For feminists, the question of how we read is inextricably linked with the question of what we read.

(2) Elaine Showalter’s critique of the literary curriculum is exemplary of this work.

(3) Androcentric literature structures the reading experience differently depending on the gender of the reader.

(4) The documentation of this realization was one of the earliest tasks undertaken by feminist critics.

(5) More specifically, the feminist inquiry into the activity of reading begins with the realization that the literary canon is androcentric, and that this has a profoundly damaging effect on women readers.

Explanation

Correct answer- 3

Except sentence 3, the other sentences talk about the feminists’ way of looking at the literary works.

Question-9

(1) You can observe the truth of this in every e-business model ever constructed: monopolise and protect data.

(2) Economists and technologists believe that a new kind of capitalism is being created – different from industrial capitalism as was merchant capitalism.

(3) In 1962, Kenneth Arrow, the guru of mainstream economics, said that in a free market economy the purpose of inventing things is to create intellectual property rights.

(4) There is, alongside the world of monopolised information and surveillance, a different dynamic growing up: information as a social good, incapable of being owned or exploited or priced.

(5) Yet information is abundant. Information goods are freely replicable. Once a thing is made, it can be copied and pasted infinitely.

Explanation

Correct answer- 2

Options 1 talks about monopoly and data protection. So, it can be connected with option 3 which talks about intellectual property rights. Options 4 and 5 also talk about monopoly of information. However, option 2 talks about different kinds of capitalism. Hence, option 2 is the odd one out.

Question-10

(1) The victim’s trauma after assault rarely gets the attention that we lavish on the moment of damage that divided the survivor from a less encumbered past.

(2) One thing we often do with narratives of sexual assault is sort their respective parties into different temporalities: it seems we are interested in perpetrators’ futures and victims’ pasts.

(3) One result is that we don’t have much of a vocabulary for what happens in a victim’s life after the painful past has been excavated, even when our shared language gestures toward the future, as the term “survivor” does.

(4) Even the most charitable questions asked about the victims seem to focus on the past, in pursuit of understanding or of corroboration of painful details.

(5) As more and more stories of sexual assault have been made public in the last two years, the genre of their telling has exploded — crimes have a tendency to become not just stories but genres.

Explanation

Correct answer- 4

Sentences 1, 2, 3 and 5 focus both on the past and the future of a victim of sexual assault. However, sentence 4 talks about questions focusing only on the victim’s past. Hence, option 4 is the odd one out.

Question- 11

(1) Machine learning models are prone to learning human-like biases from the training data that feeds these algorithms.

(2) Hate speech detection is part of the on-going effort against oppressive and abusive language on social media.

(3) The current automatic detection models miss out on something vital: context.

(4) It uses complex algorithms to flag racist or violent speech faster and better than human beings alone.

(5) For instance, algorithms struggle to determine if group identifiers like “gay” or “black” are used in offensive or prejudiced ways because they’re trained on imbalanced datasets with unusually high rates of hate speech.

Explanation

Correct answer- 3

Sentences 1, 2, 4 and 5 are about detecting hate speech through machine learning and its process. Sentence 3, however, talks about the context in which certain words are used in social media which the machine is not able to understand or detect. Hence, the correct answer is sentence 3. The correct order of the sentences will be – Hate speech detection is part of the ongoing effort against oppressive and abusive language on social media. It uses complex algorithms to flag racist or violent speech faster and better than human beings alone. Machine learning models are prone to learning human-like biases from the training data that feeds these algorithms. For instance, algorithms struggle to determine if group identifiers like “gay” or “black” are used in offensive or prejudiced ways because they’re trained on imbalanced datasets with unusually high rates of hate speech.

Question- 12

(1) The logic of displaying one’s inner qualities through outward appearance was based on a distinction between being a woman and being feminine.

(2) ‘Appearance’ became a signifier of conduct – to look was to be and conformity to the feminine ideal was measured by how well women could use the tools of the fashion and beauty industries.

(3) The makeover-centric media sets out subtly and not-so-subtly, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ ways to be a woman, layering these over inequalities of race and class.

(4) The denigration of working-class women and women of colour often centres on their perceived failure to embody feminine beauty.

(5) ‘Woman’ was considered a biological category, but femininity was a ‘process’ by which women became specific kinds of women.

Explanation

Correct answer – 3

The correct order will be 1524.

1. The logic of displaying one’s inner qualities through outward appearance was based on a distinction between being a woman and being feminine.

2. ‘Woman’ was considered a biological category, but femininity was a ‘process’ by which women became specific kinds of women.

3. ‘Appearance’ became a signifier of conduct – to look was to be and conformity to the feminine ideal was measured by how well women could use the tools of the fashion and beauty industries.

4. The denigration of working-class women and women of colour often centres on their perceived failure to embody feminine beauty.

The reference to class and race in statement 3 makes it the odd one out.

Question- 13

Five sentences related to a topic are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a meaningful and coherent short paragraph. Identify the odd one out. Choose its number as your answer and key it in.

1. One argument is that actors that do not fit within a single, well-defined category may suffer an “illegitimacy discount”.

2. Others believe that complex identities confuse audiences about an organization’s role or purpose.

3. Some organizations have complex and multidimensional identities that span or combine categories, while other organizations possess narrow identities.

4. Identity is one of the most important features of organizations, but there exist opposing views among sociologists about how identity affects organizational performance.

5. Those who think that complex identities are beneficial point to the strategic advantages of ambiguity, and organizations’ potential to differentiate themselves from competitors.

Explanation

Correct answer- 1

Statement 4 is the introductory statement as it introduces the concept of complex identities. It will be followed by statement 3 as it further explains the phenomena of complex identities. Statements 2 and 5 form a pair because as they discuss two conflicting ideas of complex identities. Only statement 1 is the odd one out.

Question-14

Five sentences related to a topic are given below in a jumbled order. Four of them form a coherent and unified paragraph. Identify the odd sentence that does not go with the four. Key in the number of the option that you choose.

1. ‘Stat’ signaled something measurable, while ‘matic’ advertised free labour; but ‘tron’, above all, indicated control.

2. It was a totem of high modernism, the intellectual and cultural mode that decreed no process or phenomenon was too complex to be grasped, managed and optimized.

3. Like the heraldic shields of ancient knights, these morphemes were painted onto the names of scientific technologies to proclaim one’s history and achievements to friends and enemies alike.

4. The historian Robert Proctor at Stanford University calls the suffix ‘-tron’, along with ‘-matic’ and ‘- stat’, embodied symbols.

5. To gain the suffix was to acquire a proud and optimistic emblem of the electronic and atomic age.

Explanation

Correct answer- 2

4 is the introductory sentence as it introduces ‘suffix’. The author then talks about what these symbols mean in statement 1. This is followed by statement 5 which talks about gaining suffix. It is followed by statement 3 which throws light on how these symbols are painted on the names of scientific technologies. Statement 2 does not fit entirely with the context of the passage and is hence the odd one out.

Question- 15

1. His idea to use sign language was not a completely new idea as Native Americans used hand gestures to communicate with other tribes.

2. Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, for example, observed that men who are deaf are incapable of speech.

3. People who were born deaf were denied the right to sign a will as they were “presumed to understand nothing; because it is not possible that they have been able to learn to read or write.”

4. Pushback against this prejudice began in the 16th century when Pedro Ponce de León created a formal sign language for the hearing impaired.

5. For millennia, people with hearing impairments encountered marginalization because it was believed that language could only be learned by hearing the spoken word.

Explanation

Correct answer- 2

The five sentences discuss the issue of hearing impairments and marginalization because of this. Statements 5, 4, 1 and 3 revolve around the same concept. Sentence 2 seems a little out of context. Thus, the correct answer is option 2.

Question-16

(1) Socrates told us that ‘the unexamined life is not worth living’ and that to ‘know thyself’ is the path to true wisdom

(2) It suggests that you should adopt an ancient rhetorical method favored by the likes of Julius Caesar and known as ‘illeism’ – or speaking about yourself in the third person.

(3) Research has shown that people who are prone to rumination also often suffer from impaired decision making under pressure and are at a substantially increased risk of depression.

(4) Simple rumination – the process of churning your concerns around in your head – is not the way to achieve self-realization.

(5) The idea is that this small change in perspective can clear your emotional fog, allowing you to see past your biases.

Explanation

Correct answer- 1

Sentences 2 and 5 can be clubbed together. Sentence 2 talks about speaking from the third person’s point of view while sentence 5 mentions a change in perspective. Sentences 3 and 4 can be clubbed together as well because both explain rumination. Therefore, sentence 1 is the odd sentence.

Question- 17

(1) A particularly interesting example of inference occurs in many single panel comics.

(2) It’s the creator’s participation and imagination that makes the single-panel comic so engaging and so rewarding.

(3) Often, the humor requires you to imagine what happened in the instant immediately before or immediately after the panel you’re being shown.

(4) To get the joke, you actually have to figure out what some of these missing panels must be.

(5) It is as though the cartoonist devised a series of panels to tell the story and has chosen to show you only one – and typically not even the funniest.

Explanation

Correct answer- 2

Except sentence 2, the other sentences talk about single panel comics and the characteristic feature of being interesting, humorous, funny and possessing an element of joke. Thus, all the sentences, except sentence 2, can be clubbed together.

Question- 18

(1) Ocean plastic is problematic for a number of reasons, but primarily because marine animals eat it.

(2) The largest numerical proportion of ocean plastic falls in small size fractions.

(3) Aside from clogging up the digestive tracts of marine life, plastic also tends to adsorb pollutants from the water column.

(4) Plastic in the oceans is arguably one of the most important and pervasive environmental problems today.

(5) Eating plastic has a number of negative consequences such as the retention of plastic particles in the gut for longer periods than normal food particles.

Explanation

Correct answer- 2

Except sentence 2, the other sentences talk about the problem of plastic pollution and how marine animals eat plastic. Sentence 2 doesn’t talk about the consumption of plastic. Hence, it is the odd sentence.

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