ParallelismCAT Previous-Year Questions

5 previous-year questions on Parallelism from CAT, with full solutions. Practise free — check answers as you go; sign in to save your progress.

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5 questions

Parallelism · CAT PYQs

CAT 2002 · VARC
Passage / Data

Fill the gaps in the passage below with the most appropriate word from the options given for each gap. The right words are the ones used by the author. Be guided by the author's overall style and meaning when you choose the answers.

In a large company, ______1______ people is about as common as using a gun or a switch-blade to ______2_______ an argument. As a result, most managers have little or no experience of firing people, and they find it emotionally automatic, as result, they often delay the act interminably, much as an unhappy spouse will prolong a bad marriage. And when the firing is done, it's often done clumsily, with far worse side effects than are necessary.

Do the world-class software organizations have a different way of firing people? No. But they do the deed swiftly, humanely, and professionally.

The key point here is to view the fired employee as a "failed product" and to ask how the process ______3_______ such a phenomenon in the first place.

Q1.

In each of the questions given below, four different ways of writing a sentence are indicated. Choose the best way of writing the sentence.

  1. The main problem with the notion of price discrimination is that it is not always a bad thing, but that it  is the monopolist who has the power to decide who is charged what price.
  2. The main problem with the notion of price discrimination is not that it is always a bad thing, it is the  monopolist who has the power to decide who is charged what price.
  3. The main problem with the notion of price discrimination is not that it is always a bad thing, but that it  is the monopolist who has the power to decide who is charged what price.
  4. The main problem with the notion of price discrimination is not it is always a bad thing, but that it is  the monopolist who has the power to decide who is charged what price.
CAT 2002 · VARC
Passage / Data

Fill the gaps in the passage below with the most appropriate word from the options given for each gap. The right words are the ones used by the author. Be guided by the author's overall style and meaning when you choose the answers.

In a large company, ______1______ people is about as common as using a gun or a switch-blade to ______2_______ an argument. As a result, most managers have little or no experience of firing people, and they find it emotionally automatic, as result, they often delay the act interminably, much as an unhappy spouse will prolong a bad marriage. And when the firing is done, it's often done clumsily, with far worse side effects than are necessary.

Do the world-class software organizations have a different way of firing people? No. But they do the deed swiftly, humanely, and professionally.

The key point here is to view the fired employee as a "failed product" and to ask how the process ______3_______ such a phenomenon in the first place.

Q2.

In each of the questions given below, four different ways of writing a sentence are indicated. Choose the best way of writing the sentence.

  1. The distinctive feature of tariffs and export subsidies is that they create difference of prices at which   goods are traded on the world market and their price within a local market.
  2. The distinctive feature of tariffs and export subsidies is that they create a difference of prices at which  goods are traded with the world market and their prices in the local market.
  3. The distinctive feature of tariffs and export subsidies is that they create a difference between prices at  which goods are traded on the world market and their prices within a local market.
  4. The distinctive feature of tariffs and export subsidies that they create a difference across prices at  which goods are traded with the world market and their prices within a local market.
CAT 1999 · VARC
Passage / Data

Directions: For each of the two questions, indicate which of the statements given with that particular question is consistent with the description of the unseasonable man in the passage below.

Unseasonableness is a tendency to do socially permissible things at the wrong time. The unseasonable man is the sort of person who comes to confide in you when you are busy. He serenades his beloved when she is ill. He asks a man who has just lost money by paying a bill for a friend to pay a bill for him. He invites a friend to go for a ride just after the friend has finished a long car trip. He is eager to offer services which are not wanted, but which cannot be politely refused. If he is present at an arbitration, he stirs up dissension between the two parties, who were really anxious to agree. Such is the unseasonable man.

Q3.

Directions: In each of the following sentences, a part of the sentence is underlined. Beneath each sentence, four different ways of phrasing the underlined part are indicated. Choose the best alternative among the four.

Mr Pillai, the president of the union and who is also a member of the community group, will be in charge of the negotiations.

CAT 1999 · VARC
Passage / Data

Directions: For each of the two questions, indicate which of the statements given with that particular question is consistent with the description of the unseasonable man in the passage below.

Unseasonableness is a tendency to do socially permissible things at the wrong time. The unseasonable man is the sort of person who comes to confide in you when you are busy. He serenades his beloved when she is ill. He asks a man who has just lost money by paying a bill for a friend to pay a bill for him. He invites a friend to go for a ride just after the friend has finished a long car trip. He is eager to offer services which are not wanted, but which cannot be politely refused. If he is present at an arbitration, he stirs up dissension between the two parties, who were really anxious to agree. Such is the unseasonable man.

Q4.

Directions: In each of the following sentences, a part of the sentence is underlined. Beneath each sentence, four different ways of phrasing the underlined part are indicated. Choose the best alternative among the four.

His mother made great sacrifices to educate him, moving house on three occasions, and severing the thread on her loom’s shuttle whenever Mencius neglected his lessons to make him understand the need to persevere.

CAT 1999 · VARC
Passage / Data

Directions: For each of the two questions, indicate which of the statements given with that particular question is consistent with the description of the unseasonable man in the passage below.

Unseasonableness is a tendency to do socially permissible things at the wrong time. The unseasonable man is the sort of person who comes to confide in you when you are busy. He serenades his beloved when she is ill. He asks a man who has just lost money by paying a bill for a friend to pay a bill for him. He invites a friend to go for a ride just after the friend has finished a long car trip. He is eager to offer services which are not wanted, but which cannot be politely refused. If he is present at an arbitration, he stirs up dissension between the two parties, who were really anxious to agree. Such is the unseasonable man.

Q5.

If you are in a three-month software design project and, in two weeks, you’ve put together a program that solves part of the problem, show it to your boss without delay.