Critical Reasoning for CAT/GMAT '08

[dkny.jakhar]

Ans 2

my answer is A- as it is clearly given that the machine scans the pattern of blood vessels. So if in case a person has some eye infection, the pattern of the the blood vessels changes ....and even thou the person's retinas were scanned the machine still would not be able to recognise the retina ....

B- the option gets negated when we read the second last sentence that , no two eyes have the same pattern of blood vessels.

C&D- they are absurd answer options, because we concluded by saying that an eye scanner can find out whether the person's retina had been earlier scanned by IT. so we are talking of just one scanner.,..

E was again close but i negated it by the same reasoning as above... it is not a consideration that the person gets his'her retina scanned by two or more scanners...but all we are doing is to find the efficacy of the scanner in question,..

hope my tortuous reasoning helps....but looking forward to some more explanation

[dkny.jakhar]

Answer 3:

i think the answer is B?C? ...but then B is nothing but the conclusion we are drawing in the questions stem. so my answer is C

the moon could have formed by either the outer shell dislodging itself to form moon...or the comet or a meteor striking the earth... if it wsn't the former it should be the latter... but to reach to the conclusion that we are asked to draw in the question stem we need to negate this condition as well...

A- is repetition , it's given in the argument

D- we are to find out how the moon formed ....not worrying about its topography...


E-irrelevant

[dkny.jakhar]

Answer 4.

A- whether the caffeine producing plants are used to manufacture com. pesticides it's not our consideration...so negated it

BDE- al are unwarranted .... thou i'm still stuck with B

So my answer is C- as it tells us that the insect larvae once posed a major threat for the indigenous plants or their ancestors that's why they developed a defence system to prevent the insect larvae....which is the hypothesis in the last line of the argument

[dkny.jakhar]

Answer 5:

my answer is A..... thou D was a close one too- (had the conc. been -thus the only fruit in the kitchen was not ripe i would have selected it)
BCE could be eliminated easily...,

[dkny.jakhar]

ANSWER 6

my answer is C...because this is the only option that looks like a logical inference of the conclusion tht is drawn.......

looking forward to some good explanation...

regards

Jakhar

P.S. @ tzsrivastava-- pls post the answers and explanation...i' m not feeling too confident about my answers..

[krsh.vik]

Am attaching some CR exercises from last year's thread

You guys can have a look at 'em

I hope some one will take up the initiative of posting a set of questions say 5 everyday and post the answers next day

All the best

P.S : Link of Last Year (Critical Reasoning Centre for CAT 2007)

[tzsrivastava]

Originally Posted by dkny.jakhar

ANSWER 6

my answer is C.

P.S. @ tzsrivastava-- pls post the answers and explanation...i' m not feeling too confident about my answers..

here are the answers for CR #1:
1.
Premise- A program rewards prison inmates who behave particularly well in prison by giving them the chance to receive free cosmetic plastic surgery.
Premise- Among recipients of the surgery, the proportion who are convicted of new crimes committed after release is only half that for the prison population as a whole.
Conclusion- The surgery clearly has a powerful rehabilitative effect

The argument is flawed because the surgery is performed on the inmates who are already behaving well in prison. Therefore, they are very probable to behave well after their release also. Hence, the argument is based on an unrepresentative sample.

2.
Premise- The retina scanner stores information about the pattern formed by the blood vessels.
Premise- No two eyes have identical patterns of blood vessels in the retina.
Conclusion- A retina scanner can therefore be used successfully to determine for any person whether it has ever scanned a retina of that person before.

The argument assumes that if the retina scanner finds a pattern that it has not seen before, then it's a new retina it is scanning. It assumes that for a particular person, the pattern formed by the blood vessels will not change because of any cause.

3.
Premise- There are just two ways for formation of the moon from the planet it revolves around (there can be many ways of formation of moon if it is not formed from the planet it revoles around)- either part of the planet’s outer shell spun off into orbit around the planet or else a large object, such as a comet or meteoroid struck the planet so violently that it dislodged a mass of material from inside the planet.
Premise- Earth’s moon consists primarily of materials different from those of the Earth’s outer shell.Earth’s moon consists primarily of materials different from those of the Earth’s outer shell.
Conclusion- Earth’s moon was not formed from a piece of the Earth.

This can be solved through elimination. Every option other than B has no relevance to the argument.

5.
The only plants in the garden were tulips, but they were tall tulips. So the only plants in the garden were tall plants.

This argument is about how relative a characteristic is. A tulip maybe tall among tulips but it maybe short compared with average height of plants. Let's examine two options:

A: The only dogs in the show were poodles and they were all black poodles. So all the dogs in the show were black. There is no relativity in the characteristic here. There is no less black or more black. If a dog is black it is absolutely black.
C: All the primates in the zoo were gorillas. The only gorillas in the zoo were small gorillas. Thus the only primates in the zoo were small primates. There is certainly a relativity in the characteristic here. A gorilla maybe small among gorillas but it maybe large among primates.

6.
Remember two things-
A: An inference is not a conclusion.
B: An inference is not openly stated. It has to be deduced.


Please let me know if u feel nything is wrong:
rgds
tarun

[tzsrivastava]

CR # 2:

a) Shopping malls ought to focus on enticing customers & building up sales, not disciplining school children. But malls in Ghaziabad & Noida are attempting to do precisely that by barring school children in uniform from entering during school hours. This is expected to ramp up attendance at schools by discouraging bunking & sitting in air conditioned comfort of malls.
Which of the following, if true, weakens the assumption in the above argument?

1. The move is not the result of a government order but rather a voluntary decision by the management of malls.
2. Technical & vocational students in & around Ghaziabd, wearing uniform have quick meals in the malls.
3. Social responsibility is the concerted effort of diverse organizations.
4. A variety of entertainment hubs have opened in & around Ghaziabad.
5. Malls provide air-conditioned comfort & a pleasant ambiance

b) The UP government ordered the closure of the Reliance Fresh outlets in Varanasi & Lucknow citing law & order worries after vendor-backed protesters vandalized the shops. Political parties & politicians across the country believe that discounts to consumers are coming at the cost of their vote banks – there is the belief that the big retailer, by rendering the small vendor out of business, will see the politician out of power.

1. Which of the following, if true, would undermine the fear of the politicians?
   1. The state ban on retailers is not an easy task & the government doubts the sustainability of such a law.
   2. The protesters form a minuscule minority & the loudest protesters are neither farmers nor consumers who are the people directly involved.
   3. The beneficiaries from organized sale are not only the farmers & consumers from all economic strata but also a large base of job seekers.
   4. The rate at which organized retail is growing in India, especially in the urban sector, is what induces this fear.
   5. According to Technopak, India needs to annually develop 110 million sq ft of retail space as against 66 million sq ft being developed now for many years to meet the demand of 8% growth in the economy.

[tzsrivastava]

Originally Posted by krsh.vik

Am attaching some CR exercises from last year's thread

You guys can have a look at 'em

I hope some one will take up the initiative of posting a set of questions say 5 everyday and post the answers next day

All the best

P.S : Link of Last Year (Critical Reasoning Centre for CAT 2007)

lot of thanks for the attchment....

rgds
tarun

[vyomb]

Krisshi... thx dude...

More stuff attached here