Indian Institue of Management 2008 Entrance Exams Other Entrance Exams CAT - Question Paper

Once you start to look at language not as the ineffable essence of human uniqueness but as a biological adaptation to communicate information, it is no longer as tempting to see language as an insidious shaper of thought, and, we shall see, it is not. Moreover, seeing language as 1 of nature’s engineering marvels – an organ with “that perfection of structure and co-adaptation which justly excites our admiration,” in Darwin’s words – provide us a new respect for your ordinary Joe and the much-maligned English language (or any language). The complexity of language, from the scientist’s point of view, is part of our biological birth right; it is not something that parents teach their children or something that must be elaborated in school – as Oscar Wilde said, “Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from tie to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. “ A preschooler’s tacit knowledge of grammar is more sophisticated than the thickest style manual or the most state-of –the-art computer language system, and the identical applies to all healthy human beings, even the notorious syntax- fracturing professional athlete and the, you know, inarticulate teenage skateboarder. Finally, since language is the product of a well-engineered biological instinct, we shall see that it is not the nutty barrel of monkeys that entertainment make it out to be.


81. According the passage, which of the subsequent does not stem from popular wisdom
on language?
(1) Language is a cultural artifact .
(2) Language is a cultural invention.
(3) Language is learnt as we grow.
(4) Language is unique to Homo sapiens.
(5) Language is a psychological faculty.



82. Which of the subsequent can be used to change the “spiders know how to spin webs”
analogy as used by the author?

(1) A kitten learning to jump over a wall
(2) Bees collecting nectar
(3) A donkey carrying a load
(4) A horse running a Derby
(5) A pet dog protecting its owner’s property



83. According to the passage, which of the subsequent is unique to human beings?\

(1) Ability to use symbols while communicating with 1 a different.
(2) Ability to communicate with every other through voice modulation.
(3) Ability to communicate info to other members of the species.
(4) Ability to use sound as means of communication.
(5) All of the above.



84. According to the passage, complexity of language cannot be taught by parents or at
school to children because

(1) children instinctively know language.
(2) children learn the language on their own.
(3) languages is not amenable to teaching.
(4) children know language better than their teachers or parents.
(5) children are born with the knowledge of semiotics.



85. which of the subsequent best summarizes the passage?
(1) Language is unique to Homo sapiens.
(2) Language is neither learnt nor taught.
(3) Language is not a cultural invention or artifact as it is made out.
(4) Language is instinctive ability of human beings.
(5) Language is use of symbols unique to human beings.



Directions for ques. 86 to 90: The passage provided beneath is followed by a set of 5 ques.. select the most improper ans to every ques..


When I was little, children were bought 2 types of ice cream, sold from those white wagons with canopies made of silvery metal: either the two-cent cone or the four-cent ice cream pie. The two-cent cone was very small, in fact it could fit comfortably into a child’s hand, and it was made by taking the ice cream from its container with a special scoop and pilling it on the cone. Granny always suggested I eat only a part of the cone, then throw away the pointed end, because it had been touched the vendor’s hand (though that was the best part, nice andcrunchy, and it was regularly eaten in secret, after a pretence of discarding it).
The four-cent pie was made by a special little machine, also silvery, which pressed 2 disks of sweet biscuit against a cylindrical part of ice cream. 1st you had to thrust your tongue into the gap ranging from the biscuits until it touched the central nucleus of ice cream: then, gradually, you ate the whole thing, the biscuit surfaces softening as they became soaked in creamy nectar. Granny had no advice to provide here: in theory the pies had been touched only by the machine; in practice, the vendor had held them in his hand while giving them to us, but it was impossible to isolate the contaminated area.

I was fascinated, however, by a few of my peers, whose parents bought them not a four-cent pie but 2 two-cent cones. These privileged children advanced proudly with 1 cone in their right hand and 1 in their left; and expertly moving their head from side to side, they licked 1st one, then the other. This liturgy seemed to me so sumptuously enviable, that many times I asked to be allowed to celebrate it. In vain. My elders were inflexible: a four-cent ice, yes; but two-cent ones, absolutely no.

As anyone can see, neither mathematics nor economy nor dietetics justified this refusal. Nor did hygiene, assuming that in due course the tips of both cones were discarded. The pathetic, and obviously mendacious, justification was that a boy concerned with turning his eyes from 1 cone to the other was more inclined to stumble over stones, steps, or cracks in the pavement. I dimly sensed that there was a different secret justification, cruelly pedagogical, but I was unable to grasp it.

Today, citizen and victim of a consumer society, a civilization of excess and waste (which the society of the thirties was not), I realize that those dear and now departed elders were right. 2 two-cent cones instead of 1 at 4 cents did not signify squandering, economically speaking, but symbolically they surely did. It was for this precise reason, that I yearned for them: because 2 ice creams suggested excess. And this was precisely why they were denied to me: because they looked indecent, an insult to poverty, a display of fictitious privilege, a boast of wealth. Only spoiled children ate 2 cones at once, those children who in fairy tales were rightly punished, as Pinocchio was when he rejected the skin and the stalk. And parents who encouraged this weakness, improper to little parvenus, were bringing up their children in the foolish theatre of “I’d like to but I can’t.” They were preparing them to turn up at tourist-class check-in with a fake Gucci bag bought from a street peddler on the beach at Rimini.

Nowadays the moralist risks seeming at odds with morality, in a world where the consumer civilization now wants even adults to be spoiled, and promises them always something more, form the wristwatch in the box of detergent to the bonus bangle sheathed, with the magazine it accompanies in a plastic envelope. Like the parents of those ambidextrous gluttons I so envied, the consumer civilization pretends to provide more, but truly gives, for 4 cents, what is worth 4 cents. You will throwaway the old transistor radio to purchase the new one, that boasts an alarm clock as well, but a few inexplicable defect in the mechanism will guarantee that the radio lasts only a year. The new cheap car will have leather seats, double side mirrors adjustable from inside, and a paneled dashboard, but it will not last nearly so long as the glorious old Fiat 500, which, even when it broke down, could be started again with a kick.
The morality of the old days made Spartans of us all, while today’s morality wants all of us to be Sybarites.



86. Which of the subsequent cannot be inferred from the passage?

(1) Today’s society is more extravagant than the society of the 1930s.
(2) The act of eating 2 ice cream cones is akin to a ceremonial process.
(3) Elders rightly suggested that a boy turning eyes from 1 cone to the other was more likely to fall.
(4) Despite seeming to promise more, the consumer civilization provide away exactly what the thing is worth.
(5) The consumer civilization attempts to spoil children and adults alike.



87. In the passage, the phrase “little parvenus” refers to

(1) naughty midgets.
(2) old hags.
(3) arrogant people.
(4) young upstarts.
(5) foolish children.



88. The writer pined for 2 two-cent cones instead of 1 four-cent pie because

(1) it made dietetic sense.
(2) it suggested intemperance.
(3) it was more fun.
(4) it had a visual appeal.
(5) he was a glutton.



89. What does the writer mean by “nowadays the moralist risks seeming at odds with
morality”?

(1) The moralists of yrsterday have become immortal today.
(2) The concept of morality has changed over the years.
(3) Consumerism is amoral.
(4) The risks associated with immorality have gone up.
(5) The purist’s view of morality is fast becoming popular.



90. According to the author, the justification for refusal to let him eat 2 cones was
plausibly

(1) didactic.
(2) dietetic.
(3) dialectic.
(4) diatonic.
(5) diastolic.

Earning:   Approval pending.