CAT 2021 Question Paper and Answer Key PDF (Nov 28, 2021) (Slot 3)

CAT 2021 Slot 3 Question Paper and Answer Key PDF are available for download with detailed solutions. IIM Ahmedabad conducted CAT 2021 on November 28, 2021, with Slot 3 held from 4:30 PM to 6:30 PM.

CAT 2021 Question Paper and Answer Key PDF

(DIRECTIONS for questions 1-4)

The passage below is accompanied by a set of questions. Choose the best answer to each question.

Starting in 1957, [Noam Chomsky] proclaimed a new doctrine: Language, that most human of all attributes, was innate. The grammatical faculty was built into the infant brain, and your average 3-year-old was not a mere apprentice in the great enterprise of absorbing English from his or her parents, but a “linguistic genius.” Read More

1. On the basis of the information in the passage, Pinker and Chomsky may disagree with each other on which one of the following points?

1. The possibility of a universal grammar.

2. The inborn language acquisition skills of humans.

3. The language instinct.

4. The Darwinian explanatory paradigm for language.

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2. From the passage, it can be inferred that all of the following are true about Pinker’s book, “The Language Instinct”, EXCEPT that Pinker:

1. writes in a different style from Chomsky.

2. disagrees with Chomsky on certain grounds.

3. draws extensively from Chomsky’s propositions.

4. draws from behavioural psychology theories.

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3. According to the passage, all of the following are true about the language instinct EXCEPT that:

1. not all intelligent primates are gifted with it.

2. all intelligent primates are gifted with it.

3. it confers an evolutionary reproductive advantage.

4. developments in neuroscience have increased its acceptance.

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4. Which one of the following statements best summarises the author’s position about Pinker’s book?

1. The evolutionary and deterministic framework of Pinker’s book makes it racist.

2. The universality of the “language instinct” counters claims that Pinker’s book is racist.

3. Anatomical developments like the voice box play a key role in determining language acquisition skills.

4. Culture and environment play a key role in shaping our acquisition of language.

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(DIRECTIONS for questions 5-8)

The passage below is accompanied by a set of questions. Choose the best answer to each question.

Keeping time accurately comes with a price. The maximum accuracy of a clock is directly related to how much disorder, or entropy, it creates every time it ticks. Natalia Ares at the University of Oxford and her colleagues made this discovery using a tiny clock with an accuracy that can be controlled. Read More

5. Which one of the following sets of words and phrases serves best as keywords of the passage?

1. Electric current; Heat; Quantum effects.

2. Silicon Nitride; Energy; Grandfather Clock.

3. Measuring Time; Accuracy; Entropy.

4. Membrane; Arrow of time; Entropy.

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6. The author makes all of the following arguments in the passage, EXCEPT that:

1. The relationship between accuracy and entropy may not apply to all clocks.

2. Researchers found that the heat produced in a system is the price paid for increased accuracy of measurement.

3. There is no difference in accuracy between an inefficient grandfather clock and an atomic clock.

4. In designing clocks for quantum computers, both precision and heat have to be taken into account.

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7. “It’s a bit like fuel use in a car. Just because I’m using more fuel doesn’t mean that I’m going faster or further . . .” What is the purpose of this example?

1. If you go faster in a car, you will tend to consume more fuel, but the converse is not necessarily true. In the same way, increased entropy does not necessarily mean greater accuracy of a clock.

2. The further you go in a car, the more fuel you use. In the same way, the faster you go in a car, the less time you use.

3. If you measure the speed of a car with a grandfather clock, the result will be different than if you measured it with an atomic clock.

4. The further and faster you go in a car, the greater the amount of fuel you will use, the greater the amount of heat produced and, hence, the greater the entropy.

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8. None of the following statements can be inferred from the passage EXCEPT that:

1. the arrow of time has not yet been tested for atomic clocks.

2. quantum computers are likely to produce more heat and, hence, more entropy, because of the emphasis on their clocks' accuracy.

3. grandfather clocks are likely to produce less heat and, hence, less entropy, because they are not as accurate.

4. a clock with a 50-nanometre-thick membrane of silicon nitride has been made to vibrate, producing electric currents.

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(DIRECTIONS for questions 9-12)

The passage below is accompanied by a set of questions. Choose the best answer to each question.

Back in the early 2000s, an awesome thing happened in the New X-Men comics. Our mutant heroes had been battling giant robots called Sentinels for years, but suddenly these mechanical overlords spawned a new threat: Nano-Sentinels! Not content to rule Earth with their metal fists, these tiny robots invaded our bodies at the microscopic level. Infected humans were slowly converted into machines, cell by cell. Read More

9. Which one of the following statements, if true, would be the most direct extension of the arguments in the passage?

1. In the future, robots will be used to search and destroy diseases even in the deepest recesses of the human body.

2. 1-centimetre blobs of gel that have nano-robots in them will be used to send messages.

3. Sentinel robots will be used in warfare to cause large-scale destructive mutations amongst civilians.

4. X-Men may be created by injecting people with mutant nano-gels that will respond to the brain’s magnetic field.

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10. Which one of the following statements best summarises the central point of the passage?

1. Once the stuff of science fiction, nano-robots now feature in cutting-edge scientific research.

2. Robots will use nano-robots on their feet and wheels to climb walls or move on ceilings.

3. Nano-robots made from molecules that react to water have become increasingly useful.

4. The field of robotics is likely to be feature more and more in comics like the New X-Men.

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11. Which one of the following scenarios, if false, could be seen as supporting the passage?

1. There are two kinds of molecules used to make some nano-robots: one that reacts positively to water and the other negatively.

2. Nano-Sentinel-like robots are likely to be used to inject people to convert them into robots, cell by cell.

3. Robots made from smart materials are likely to become part of our everyday lives in the future.

4. Some hydrogels turn sticky when an electric current is passed through them; this potentially has very useful applications.

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12. Which one of the following statements best captures the sense of the first paragraph?

1. None of the options listed here.

2. Tiny sentinels called X-Men infected people, turning them into mutant robot overlords.

3. People who were infected by Nano-Sentinel robots became mutants who were called X-Men.

4. The X-Men were mutant heroes who now had to battle tiny robots called Nano-Sentinels.

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(DIRECTIONS for questions 13-16)

The passage below is accompanied by a set of questions. Choose the best answer to each question.

Today we can hardly conceive of ourselves without an unconscious. Yet between 1700 and 1900, this notion developed as a genuinely original thought. The “unconscious” burst the shell of conventional language, coined as it had been to embody the fleeting ideas and the shifting conceptions of several generations until, finally, it became fixed and defined in specialized terms within the realm of medical psychology and Freudian psychoanalysis. Read More

13. Which one of the following statements best describes what the passage is about?

1. The identification of the unconscious as an object of psychical research.

2. The collating of diverse ideas under the single term: unconscious.

3. The growing vocabulary of the soul and the mind, as diverse processes.

4. The discovery of the unconscious as a part of the human mind.

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14. All of the following statements may be considered valid inferences from the passage, EXCEPT:

1. New conceptions in the nineteenth century could provide new knowledge because of the establishment of fields such as anaesthesiology.

2. Unrelated practices began to be treated as related to each other, as knowledge of the mind grew in the nineteenth century.

3. Without the linguistic developments of the nineteenth century, the growth of understanding of the soul and the mind may not have happened.

4. Eighteenth century thinkers were the first to perceive a connection between creative genius and insanity.

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15. Which one of the following sets of words is closest to mapping the main arguments of the passage?

1. Language; Unconscious; Psychoanalysis.

2. Unconscious; Latent conception; Dreams.

3. Literary language; Unconscious; Insanity.

4. Imagination; Magnetism; Psychiatry.

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16. “The enrichments of literary and intellectual language led to an altered understanding of the meanings that underlie time-honored expressions and traditional catchwords.” Which one of the following interpretations of this sentence would be closest in meaning to the original?

1. Time-honored expressions and traditional catchwords were enriched by literary and intellectual language.

2. The meanings of time-honored expressions were changed by innovations in literary and intellectual language.

3. Literary and intellectual language was altered by time-honored expressions and traditional catchwords.

4. All of the options listed here.

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17. 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. 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.

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18. The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3 and 4) below, when properly sequenced would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequencing of the order of the sentences and key in the sequence of the four numbers as your answer:
1. Businesses find automation, such as robotic employees, a big asset in terms of productivity and efficiency.
2. But in recent years, robotics has had increasing impacts on unemployment, not just of manual labour, as computers are rapidly handling some white-collar and service-sector work.
3. For years politicians have promised workers that they would bring back their jobs by clamping down on trade, offshoring and immigration.
4. Economists, based on their research, say that the bigger threat to jobs now is not globalisation but automation.

1. 2134

2. 3412

3. 2341

4. 2413

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The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.

19. Brazil’s growth rate has been low, yet most Brazilians say their financial situation has improved, and they expect it to get even better. This is because most incomes are rising fast, with higher minimum wages and very low unemployment. The result is falling inequality and a growing middle class — the result of economic stabilization, improved social security and universal primary education. But despite recent improvements the Brazilian economy is still painfully unequal, with poor Brazilians paying the biggest share of their income in taxes and getting the least back in government services.

1. Most Brazilians feel they have benefitted from recent economic events, but the poor continue to be dealt unfairly by the state.

2. With rising incomes and falling unemployment, most Brazilians are being misled into thinking that their economy is doing well.

3. Economic reforms have benefitted many Brazilians, but they are unaware of the impending problems from rising inequalities in their society.

4. Good economic indicators have masked the unfair taxation of the poor that is likely to destabilise the Brazilian economy in the next few years.

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The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.

20. People view idleness as a sin and industriousness as a virtue, and in the process have developed an unsatisfactory relationship with their jobs. Work has become a way for them to keep busy, even though many find their work meaningless. In their need for activity people undertake what was once considered work (fishing, gardening) as hobbies. The opposing view is that hard work has made us prosperous and improved our levels of health and education. It has also brought innovation and labour and time-saving devices, which have lessened life’s drudgery.

1. Hard work has overtaken all aspects of our lives and has enabled economic prosperity, but it is important that people reserve their leisure time for some idleness.

2. Some believe that hard work has been glorified to the extent that it has become meaningless, and led to greater idleness, but it has also had enormous positive impacts on everyday life.

3. Despite some detractors, hard work is essential in today’s world to enable economic progress, for education and health and to propel innovations that make life easier.

4. While the idealisation of hard work has propelled people into meaningless jobs and endless activity, it has also led to tremendous social benefits from prosperity and innovation.

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The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.

21. The human mind is wired to see patterns. Not only does the brain process information as it comes in, it also stores insights from all our past experiences. Every interaction, happy or sad, is catalogued in our memory. Intuition draws from that deep memory well to inform our decisions going forward. In other words, intuitive decisions are based on data, and not contrary to data as many would like to assume. When we subconsciously spot patterns, the body starts firing neurochemicals in both the brain and gut. These “somatic markers” are what give us that instant sense that something is right … or that it’s off. Not only are these automatic processes faster than rational thought, but our intuition draws from decades of diverse qualitative experience (sights, sounds, interactions, etc.) – a wholly human feature that big data alone could never accomplish.

1. Intuitions are neuro-chemical firings based on pattern recognition and draw upon a rich and vast database of experiences.

2. Intuition is infinitely richer than big data which is based on rational thought and accomplishes more than what big data can.

3. Intuition draws from deep memory, and may not be related to data, but to decades of diverse qualitative experience.

4. Intuitions are automatic processes and are therefore faster than rational thought, and so decisions based on them are better.

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22. 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. 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.

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The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3 and 4) below, when properly sequenced would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequencing of the order of the sentences and key in the sequence of the four numbers as your answer:

23. 1. Restitution of artefacts to original cultures could faces legal obstacles, as many Western museums are legally prohibited from disposing off their collections.
2. This is in response to countries like Nigeria, which are pressurising European museums to return their precious artefacts looted by colonisers in the past.
3. Museums in Europe today are struggling to come to terms with their colonial legacy, some taking steps to return artefacts but not wanting to lose their prized collections.
4. Legal hurdles notwithstanding, politicians and institutions in France and Germany would now like to defuse the colonial time bombs, and are now backing the return of part of their holdings.

1. 2314

2. 4321

3. 3214

4. 2143

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The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3 and 4) below, when properly sequenced would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequencing of the order of the sentences and key in the sequence of the four numbers as your answer:

24. 1. It is regimes of truth that make certain relationships speakable – relationships, like subjectivities, are constituted through discursive formations, which sustain regimes of truth.
2. Relationships are nothing without the communication that brings them into being; interpersonal communication is connected to knowledge shared by interlocutors, and scholars should attend to relational histories in their analyses.
3. A Foucauldian approach to relationships goes beyond these conceptions of discourse and history to macrolevel regimes of truth as constituting relationships.
4. Reconsidering micropractices within relationships that are constituted within and simultaneously contributors to regimes of truth acknowledges the central position of power/knowledge in the constitution of what has come to be considered true and real.

1. 3124

2. 3412

3. 3241

4. 2314

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CAT 2021 Slot 3 Exam Pattern

CAT 2021 Slot 3 was conducted online in computer-based mode for 120 minutes. The paper consisted of 66 questions divided into three sections: Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (24 questions), Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning (20 questions), and Quantitative Ability (22 questions). Each section had a fixed time limit of 40 minutes. The examination included both MCQ and non-MCQ (TITA) questions. Candidates received 3 marks for each correct answer, while 1 mark was deducted for an incorrect MCQ response. There was no negative marking for TITA questions.

CAT 2021 Slot 3 Important Topics

The CAT 2021 Slot 3 question paper tested reading skills, logical reasoning, mathematical concepts, and time management. The following topics were covered in the examination.

• VARC: Reading Comprehension, Para Jumbles, Para Summary, Odd Sentence Out, and Inference-Based Questions.
• DILR: Venn Diagrams, Games and Tournaments, Scheduling, Graph-Based Data Interpretation, Arrangements, and Logical Puzzles.
• Quantitative Ability: Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, Number System, Profit and Loss, Time and Work, Time-Speed-Distance, and Mixture and Alligation.

CAT 2021 Slot 3 Question Paper Analysis

CAT 2021 Slot 3 was generally considered moderate in difficulty, although the experience varied across sections. The VARC section included lengthy Reading Comprehension passages, with several inference-based questions. DILR required careful time management due to its lengthy sets and logical calculations. Quantitative Ability focused mainly on Arithmetic and Algebra, with a mix of straightforward and calculation-intensive questions. Candidates can use the CAT 2021 Slot 3 answer key to identify their mistakes and evaluate their performance.

CAT 2021 Slot 3 Question Paper FAQs

Ques: Which section was considered difficult in CAT 2021 Slot 3?

Ques: What was the sectional distribution of TITA questions in CAT 2021 Slot 3?

Ques: How can candidates calculate their CAT 2021 Slot 3 raw score using the answer key?