Question from original XAT, FMS, SNAP papers etc.

[Subodh Kant]

Hello friends

Here are the original papers of XAT, SNAP, FMS etc based on memory.
(there might be some errors)

[Subodh Kant]

Last year XAT was very innovative in its English section.

Here are the questions asked in XAT 2006. See yourself and decide what can be the type of questions asked in XAT 2007.

XAT-2006 : VERBAL ABILITY

DIRECTIONS (1- 6): Choose the correct alternative.

1. Which of the following choices MOST accurately captures the meaning of edifice as used in the sentence below?
The edifice of 'public space', built up through literacy or informative institutions of popular education and on which the pillars of democracy were mounted, is now crumbling.
A. Infrastructure
B. Building
C. Paraphernalia
D. None of the above

2. The__ of the Sanskrit Vedic hymns into English is often not possible; what experts do is a

Below there are three words indicated. Choose the alternative (among A, B,C, D) that you think has the right combination of words that can be used to fill the gaps in the sentence above and give it a coherent meaning.
X: Translation
Y Rendition
Z: Conversion

A. X,Z in that order
B. Y,X in that order
C X, Y in that order
D. Cannot be determined, since the choice depends on the context in which the sentence is used

3. The phrase 'Ranch on the Ganges':
A. Denotes an object
B. Qualifies an object
C. Alludes to a suggestive meaning
D. None of the above

4. 'In this place flowed a river. A town came up by its banks sometime. And today there is a concrete road of the metropolitan city. When I bend down and place my ears on the road, I can still hear the splashing of the water flowing underneath.'
The passage above is:
A. Literal
B. Discursive
C. Descriptive
D. None of the above

QUESTIONS 5-6

'When I become aware of the pain in my injured leg, it begins to hurt and the pain becomes so excruciating that I often loose control over my senses.'

5. In the above passage, 'excruciating' refers to:
A. Suddenness of the pain
B. Objectivity of the pain
C. Longevity of the pain
D. None. of the above

6. Which of the following words can possibly replace 'excruciating' without CHANGING the underlying meaning?
A. Dominating
B. Massive
C. Overwhelming
D. Irritating

[harsh542]

Originally Posted by Subodh Kant

Hello friends

Here are the original papers of XAT, SNAP, FMS etc based on memory.
(there might be some errors)

sirji where are the papers
few days left
please help me....
give some tips and tricks....

[Subodh Kant]

All these questions are from XAT

XAT 2006 : PARAJUMBLE

QUESTIONS 7-9: In each of the following questions, choose the correct order of statements (A, B, C...) to give a coherent meaning to the text?

Question 7
Statement A: Such inter-operability of a software service or product appears to be only one aspect, and the interoperable system is itself evolving.

Statement B: Each software product introduces a variation and consequently a change in the system.

Statement C: An operating system must work with applications and other elements in a hardware platform.

Statement D: A software firm while introducing its product or service, therefore, does not strive for mute complementarities alone but tries to bring about a change in the existing structure.

Statement E: In other words the components must be designed to be inter-operable.

A. BCDAE
B. CEABD
C DAEBC
D. CBEAD

Question 8
Statement A: Moreover, as argued above, knowledge is entailed not by way of justification as such. but by the realization of good or fruit ladenness of meaning and actions or iterated actions.

Statement B: Knowledge is required in order to resolve doubts and thus in order to act meaningfully.

Statement C: Therefore the actions in a commonly led daily life are both meaningful and knowledge-driven.

Statement D: Indian theorists argue for a common knowledge, which is obtained through iterated fruitful! actions, through the authority of sentences (or words).

Statement E: We argue for four sources of validation of knowledge, viz., sentence, inference, direct perception and analogy.
A. AECBD
R BAECD
C. BDCEA
D. EADCB

Question 9
Statement A: But PST has also used satellite pictures to suggest that an ancient fortified town had existed 30 Km from Junagadh.
Statement B: Soil and vegetation patterns were used in the search.

Statement C: The site marches the description of Krishna's town in an ancient scripture.

Statement D: PST's primary job at Space Applications Centre has been tracking land use and forest cover with satellite images.

Statement E: An archeologist however cautioned that remote sensing and scriptures by themselves would not be enough to identify a township.

Statement F: It was claimed that soil and vegetation patterns at ancient abandoned sites reveal specific patterns that can be picked by satellite images.
A. DACBEF
B. DACBFE
C. FDCABE
D. FDACBE

[Subodh Kant]

XAT 2006: CRITICAL REASONING

QUESTION 10-13: Analyze the following statements and give an appropriate answer for the following questions.

10. "If the forest continues to disappear at its present pace, the Royal Bengal tiger will approach extinction," said the biologist.
"So all that is needed to save the tiger is to stop deforestation," said the politician.

Which one of the following statements is consistent with the biologist's claim but not with the politician's claim?
A. Deforestation continues and the tiger becomes extinct.
B. Deforestation is stopped and the tiger becomes extinct.
C. Reforestation begins and the tiger survives.
D. Deforestation is slowed and the tiger approaches extinction.

11. There is little point in looking to artists for insights into political issues. Most of them hold political views that are less insightful than those of any reasonably well-educated person who is not an artist. Indeed, when taken as a whole, the statements made by artists, including those considered to be great» indicate that artistic talent and political insight are rarely found together.

Which one of the following can be inferred from the passage?
A. There are no artists who have insights into political issues.
B. Some artists are no less politically insightful than some reasonably well-educated persons who are not artists.
C. Every reasonably well-educated person who is not an artist has more insight into political issues than any artist.
D. Politicians rarely have any artistic talent.

12. All intelligent people are nearsighted. I am very nearsighted. So I must be a genius.

Which one of the following exhibits both of the logical flaws exhibited in the argument above?

A. Iacocca is extremely happy, so he must be extremely tall because all tall people are happy.
B. All chickens have beaks. This bird has a beak. So this bird must be a chicken.
C. All geniusses are very nearsighted. I must be very near sighted since I am a genius.
D. I must be stupid because all intelligent people are nearsighted and I have perfect eyesight.

13. The district health officer boasts that the average ambulance turnaround time, the time from summons to delivery of the patient, has been reduced this year for top-priority emergencies. This is a serious misrepresentation. This "reduction" was produced simply by redefining "top priority". Such emergencies Used to include gunshot wounds and electrocutions, the most time-consuming cases. Now they are limited strictly to heart attacks and strokes.

Which one of the following would strengthen the author's conclusion that it was the redefinition of "top priority" that produced the reduction in turnaround time?

A. The number of heart attacks and strokes declined this year.
B. The health officer redefined the district's medical priorities this year.
C. One half of all last year's top-priority emergencies were gunshot wounds and
electrocution cases.
D. Other cities include gunshot wound cases in their category of top-priority emergencies.

[reachmonil]

* Bump

Thread title changed to 'Question from original XAT, FMS, SNAP papers' to exactly reflect the ontent on this thread.

[Subodh Kant]

XAT 2006: Reading Comprehension - 1

DIRECTIONS: Questions 14-19 are based on the passage below.

Deliberative democracy demands a reflexive (or reflection driven) reordering of preferences in a non-coercive manner. The authenticity of democracy requires in addition that these reflective preferences, influence collective outcomes and action, and so long as the state is the main (though far from exclusive) locus of collective decisions, it requires discursive mechanisms for transmission of public opinion to the state. A deliberative or more properly a discursive democracy, in order that it can accommodate several competing versions of democracies such as the liberal, the minimal, me difference, etc., must also accommodate rhetoric, narratives, and empathy along with reasoning. A rationality and a reasoning that does not accommodate values is meaningless. However, it is also argued that' individual rationality cannot he realized if values are embedded in the decision procedures, in other words, realization of values could be made possible only when individuals behave non- rationally. Further if values having been abandoned at the individual level are accorded a place only collectively, the same must lead to either "epistemological inconsistency or abandonment of autonomy of individual evaluations". A talk or a rhetoric, otherwise, is strategic and is employed with the intention of signaling certain information. Such a talk can be therefore deceptive and coercive. The illocutionary force and the normative trappings of a Foucauldian discourse while allowing identification with a community and differences with the others, do simultaneously pose through coercion a threat to an utterance as such. If democracy cannot ensure utterance as freedom and if the illocutionary forces in a discursive democracy disciplines the thought and the talk, then how such a democracy could indeed be called authentic!

Most human actions and discourses are actuated by a deeper or primordial ante-deliberation Desire (let us use a capital 'D'). Speaking as such is out of such a Desire (one might use volition or passion). Engaging in a deliberation or else in an action is possible only since there has been such a Desire. Desire appears to both the reflection and also to an observer as a mental-state. A discourse can be set only when such mental states are in harmony, or share a common predisposition or attitude. In the absence of such shared mental-states, no discourse and no deliberation can begin. A running underlying and most often unstated theme that remains at the back of the idea of deliberative democracy is competition - a competition with the 'other' which introduces strategy. The alternative to competition, a mental-state which is out of a Desire to enjoy the 'other' in the light of a memorythat this 'one' and the 'other' were but the same and would again become the same, do not appear in the known Anglo-American literature. Such a mental-state might generate and keep alive possibilities of cooperation although is never a state of cooperation alone as such.

14. Which of the following follows from the passage above?
A. A rhetoric laden talk can generate authentic democratic collective choice
B. Irrational persons alone can have values
C. Authenticity of democracy requires a strong reflection-action interaction
D. A paradigm of competition alone can sustain an authentic democracy

15. Desire as ante-deliberation driving action refer to:
A. Irrationality of deliberation
B. Uselessness of deliberation
C. Desire to act without thinking
D. Temporal inconsistency in a position that argues for deliberative action constituting democracy

16. Which of the following is true from the passage?
A. Author argues that democracy is bound to fail
B. Author argues that Desire is primal
C Author argues for an, end to primal desire so that an end to competition can come through
D. None of the above

17. A Foucauldian discourse as used in the passage does NOT refer to:
A. Discourse based on power
B. Community based discourse
C Strategic discourse
D. None of the above

18. Which of the following words is. closest to the word 'primordial' as used in the passage above?
A. Elemental
B. Anarchist
C. Animalistic
D. Nihilistic

19. Which of the following captures the spirit of the position that the author hints at through the phrase 'alternative to competition'?
A. All the pragmatic world is-a stage -a play unfolding
B. Democracy is an unruly fight among citizens
C. Socialist planning does away with the chaos of competition
D. None of the above

[Subodh Kant]

XAT 2006: Reading Comprehension - 2


DIRECTIONS: Questions 20-22 are based on the passage below.

In 1980, the US Supreme Court overturned decades of legal precedents that said that naturally occurring phenomenon, such as bacteria, could not be patented because they were discoveries rather than inventions. Yet that year, the Court decided that a biologist named Chakrabarty could patent a hybridized bacterium because 'his discovery was his handiwork, not that of nature'. A majority of the judges reiterated that 'a new mineral discovered in the earth or a new plant discovered in the wild is not patentable'. Yet they believed that Chakrabarty had concocted something new using his own ingenuity. Even Chakrabarty was surprised. He had simply cultured different strains of bacteria in the belief that they would exchange genetic material in a laboratory soup. The then embryonic industry used the case to argue that patents should be issued on gene, proteins and other materials of commercial value.

By 1980s, the US Patent Office had embarked on a far-reaching change of policy to propel the US industry forward, routinely issuing patents on products of nature including genes, fragments of genes and human proteins. In 1987. for example, Genetics Institute Inc. was awarded a patent on erythropoietin, a protein of 165 amino acids that stimulates the production of red blood cells. It did not claim to have invented the protein: it had extracted small amounts of the naturally occurring substance from thousands of gallons of urine. Erythropoietin is now a multi-billion dollar-a-year treatment.

The industry's argument is that innovation prospers only when it is rewarded. Without rewards, innovation will not take place. The barriers to entry into biotechnology are relatively low. Biotechnology companies do not have to build costly factories of high street retail outlets or invest in brand reputations. The basic units of production are bacteria manipulated to deliver therapeutically and commercially valuable substances. Without the protection of a patent, an innovative biotechnology company will find its discoveries quickly copied by later entrant. If the ownership of rights to exploit a genetic discovery were left unclear, there would be less innovation in the economy as a whole and we would all be worse off. The biotechnology industry in USA is larger than anywhere else, in part because innovators there have been allowed to patent their' inventions'. In 1998, there were almost 1500 patents claiming rights to exploit human gene sequences.

Yet the ownership regime for industries and products spawned by genetics is far from settled. A practical argument is about what should be owned - the gene or the treatment. The cystic fibrosis gene, for example, is patented, and anyone who makes or uses a diagnostic kit that uses knowledge of the gene sequence has to pay royalty to the patent holder. Many would argue that this is too broad a patent, which may be excessively strong and slow down innovation. As we move into the knowledge economy, issues such as the breadth and scope of a patent, the standards of novelty, even the duration; will become more problematical. To put in another way, who should own what and for how long will become more of an issue in a knowledge driven economy. That is because incentives to exploit knowledge need to be set against the value of sharing it. Scientific enquiry proceeds as a result of collaboration, the sharing and testing of ideas. We are lucky that James Watson and his collaborator Francis Creek did not work for Genentech or Glaxo-Wellcome because every genetic researcher would now be paying a royalty to use their discovery. Genetics, as most sciences, is built on a bedrock of shared knowledge. The more basic the knowledge, the more inappropriate strong property rights and exclusive private ownership becomes. Privatization ofknowledg- may make it less likely that know-how will be shared. Perkin Elme will publish its research on the, human genome, but only once in three months and the company will reserve at least 300 genes for its own patent programme. Publicly funded researchers share their results more openly and more frequently.

20. The erythropoietin episode shows that:
A. Patenting is the only way to encourage exploration of new ideas
B. Patenting accelerates exploitation of new ideas
C. Claims to patentability are often false
D. None of the above

21. After reading the passage, which of the following statements do you think captures best, the tenor of the piece?

A. The author is unequivocal about undesirability of a patenting system
B. The author .explores the complexities in patenting
C. The author deliberately obfuscates issues
D. The passage is boring about

22. Chakrabarty patent issue shows that:
A. Patent authorities are infallible
B. Patent systems are adhoc
C. Patenting rationale is socially embedded and evolutionary
D. None of the above
DIRECTIONS: Questions 20-22 are based on the passage below.

In 1980, the US Supreme Court overturned decades of legal precedents that said that naturally occurring phenomenon, such as bacteria, could not be patented because they were discoveries rather than inventions. Yet that year, the Court decided that a biologist named Chakrabarty could patent a hybridized bacterium because 'his discovery was his handiwork, not that of nature'. A majority of the judges reiterated that 'a new mineral discovered in the earth or a new plant discovered in the wild is not patentable'. Yet they believed that Chakrabarty had concocted something new using his own ingenuity. Even Chakrabarty was surprised. He had simply cultured different strains of bacteria in the belief that they would exchange genetic material in a laboratory soup. The then embryonic industry used the case to argue that patents should be issued on gene, proteins and other materials of commercial value.

By 1980s, the US Patent Office had embarked on a far-reaching change of policy to propel the US industry forward, routinely issuing patents on products of nature including genes, fragments of genes and human proteins. In 1987. for example, Genetics Institute Inc. was awarded a patent on erythropoietin, a protein of 165 amino acids that stimulates the production of red blood cells. It did not claim to have invented the protein: it had extracted small amounts of the naturally occurring substance from thousands of gallons of urine. Erythropoietin is now a multi-billion dollar-a-year treatment.

The industry's argument is that innovation prospers only when it is rewarded. Without rewards, innovation will not take place. The barriers to entry into biotechnology are relatively low. Biotechnology companies do not have to build costly factories of high street retail outlets or invest in brand reputations. The basic units of production are bacteria manipulated to deliver therapeutically and commercially valuable substances. Without the protection of a patent, an innovative biotechnology company will find its discoveries quickly copied by later entrant. If the ownership of rights to exploit a genetic discovery were left unclear, there would be less innovation in the economy as a whole and we would all be worse off. The biotechnology industry in USA is larger than anywhere else, in part because innovators there have been allowed to patent their' inventions'. In 1998, there were almost 1500 patents claiming rights to exploit human gene sequences.

Yet the ownership regime for industries and products spawned by genetics is far from settled. A practical argument is about what should be owned - the gene or the treatment. The cystic fibrosis gene, for example, is patented, and anyone who makes or uses a diagnostic kit that uses knowledge of the gene sequence has to pay royalty to the patent holder. Many would argue that this is too broad a patent, which may be excessively strong and slow down innovation. As we move into the knowledge economy, issues such as the breadth and scope of a patent, the standards of novelty, even the duration; will become more problematical. To put in another way, who should own what and for how long will become more of an issue in a knowledge driven economy. That is because incentives to exploit knowledge need to be set against the value of sharing it. Scientific enquiry proceeds as a result of collaboration, the sharing and testing of ideas. We are lucky that James Watson and his collaborator Francis Creek did not work for Genentech or Glaxo-Wellcome because every genetic researcher would now be paying a royalty to use their discovery. Genetics, as most sciences, is built on a bedrock of shared knowledge. The more basic the knowledge, the more inappropriate strong property rights and exclusive private ownership becomes. Privatization ofknowledg- may make it less likely that know-how will be shared. Perkin Elme will publish its research on the, human genome, but only once in three months and the company will reserve at least 300 genes for its own patent programme. Publicly funded researchers share their results more openly and more frequently.

20. The erythropoietin episode shows that:
A. Patenting is the only way to encourage exploration of new ideas
B. Patenting accelerates exploitation of new ideas
C. Claims to patentability are often false
D. None of the above

21. After reading the passage, which of the following statements do you think captures best, the tenor of the piece?

A. The author is unequivocal about undesirability of a patenting system
B. The author .explores the complexities in patenting
C. The author deliberately obfuscates issues
D. The passage is boring about

22. Chakrabarty patent issue shows that:
A. Patent authorities are infallible
B. Patent systems are adhoc
C. Patenting rationale is socially embedded and evolutionary
D. None of the above

[Subodh Kant]

XAT 2006: Reading Comprehension - 3

DIRECTIONS: Questions 23-29 are based on the passage below.

Enterprises in the throes of discovery have an aura of magic around them. In the world of software this becomes many-splendoured with a certain joie de yivre, quite distinct from what obtains elsewhere: a sense of wonderment, surprise and eventual delight; a coming within reach of power and profits; possibly through a little tweak in technology with a touch of novelty, opening up vistas that had always seemed so near yet so far. In professional management terms, this waving of the wizard's wand, as it were, is nothing more than an effective recovery of strategy from a technological paradigm. This book is about exploring the journey from rules and norms to solutions, specific solutions prized out of the anoured covers of sector-specific industrial structures and often resources-determined mindsets that Indian software' firms seems to have mastered. Originality is the fountainhead of such a strategy. It then progresses into the realms of the economics of innovation to give itself a solid foundation from where it becomes possible to retrieve a new language of strategy and of innovation. In this high- natural yet dynamic world, the profit motive, backed by ingenuity, lend support to many of the arguments that evolve in this flow of events. The Indian software experience is a unique demonstration of how this process - the coalescing of the economics of surprise and novelty and the economics of knowledge works. This forms the basics of the strategy theory.

There are several grand theories of even grander traditions: the industrial organization approach, including several kinds of structure-conduct performance assertions and game theoretic models, evolutionary theories and corresponding case' studies, resource-based approaches or several intermediate variants of competency based ideas that provide us with a rich yet incomplete landscape. This landscape is perhaps oblivious of certain traditions provided by theory; the rich repertoire bequeathed by Marshall and Shackle is a case in point, as they are immensely rewarding. Each important traditions or theory has made global assertions and has proved to