CAT Mock Test: Common Admission Test

Read the passage and answer the question. When we store a phone number in a device rather than in memory, we engage in what psychologists call cognitive offloading. Critics treat this as a symptom of intellectual decline, but the history of writing suggests otherwise: Socrates worried that writing would erode memory, yet literate cultures went on to build bodies of knowledge far more complex than any oral tradition could sustain. The question, then, is not whether we offload but what we do with the capacity that is freed. Offloading becomes corrosive only when the freed attention is spent on nothing in particular. The author's primary purpose is to:

1. argue that digital devices have caused a measurable decline in human intelligence
2. reframe a common worry about cognitive offloading by shifting attention to how the freed capacity is used
3. defend Socrates' view that writing weakens human memory
4. show that oral traditions were more sophisticated than literate cultures

Revenue (₹ crore) of four firms: Firm | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 P | 120 | 150 | 180 Q | 200 | 190 | 228 R | 80 | 100 | 125 S | 150 | 165 | 198 For how many firms was the percentage growth in revenue in 2023 (over 2022) strictly greater than the percentage growth in 2022 (over 2021)?

1. 1
2. 3
3. 2
4. 4

A 60-litre mixture contains milk and water in the ratio 7 : 3. How many litres of water must be added to make the ratio 3 : 2?

1. 8
2. 12
3. 10
4. 15

Read the passage and answer the question. When we store a phone number in a device rather than in memory, we engage in what psychologists call cognitive offloading. Critics treat this as a symptom of intellectual decline, but the history of writing suggests otherwise: Socrates worried that writing would erode memory, yet literate cultures went on to build bodies of knowledge far more complex than any oral tradition could sustain. The question, then, is not whether we offload but what we do with the capacity that is freed. Offloading becomes corrosive only when the freed attention is spent on nothing in particular. Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the author's argument?

1. Literate societies produced more written records than oral ones
2. Socrates' concerns about writing were shared by other ancient philosophers
3. Most people today store phone numbers on their devices rather than memorising them
4. The act of offloading itself, regardless of how freed attention is used, impairs the ability to form new long-term memories

Read the passage and answer the question. Fisheries managers once assumed that if a fish stock collapsed, the fleet would simply move elsewhere and the fish would recover. The cod off Newfoundland disproved this. Two decades after fishing was halted, the population remained a fraction of its former size, partly because the ecosystem had reorganised: smaller species that cod once preyed upon had multiplied and now fed on young cod. A collapse, in other words, can be self-perpetuating, because it alters the very conditions that made the earlier abundance possible. The managers' earlier assumption was flawed mainly because it:

1. overestimated the fleet's willingness to move to other fishing grounds
2. ignored the economic cost of halting fishing
3. treated the ecosystem as a fixed backdrop that would remain unchanged while the stock recovered
4. relied on population counts that had been deliberately inflated