XAT 2011 Question Paper - VALR

What can be best defended as the asset which Toyota model of production leverages to give the vast range of models in a defect - free fashion?

Which of the following can be best defended as a pre-condition for the Toyota type of production system to work?

Based on the above passage, which of the following statements is best justified?

What could be the best defence of the “different work norms in contiguous assembly lines”?

The author has _________ his composition to the best of his _________; yet listen to it with a sympathetic ___________, O _____________ souls, and judge it.
The option that best fills the blanks in the above sentence would be:

There is much difficulty ________ getting ________ this place and it is not possible to reach ___________ without the grace of the lord.
The option that best fills the blanks in the above sentence would be:

_________ you have a doubt, why not go and verify? I shall be waiting in the shade ________ this banyan tree till you come back _________ me.

The option that best fills the blanks in the above sentence would be:

Pick the odd one out:

Among the following options, which one represents the most important concern raised in the passage?

Which among the following would be the best possible explanation for the lack of contact between human beings and aliens?

To which of the following statements would the author of the passage agree the most?

Which of the following statements, if true, challenges the ideas presented in the passage the most?
I. Violent crime, including gang warfare for turf protection and expansion, co - exists in all technological advanced societies in spite of proliferation of fitness - faking technologies.
II. The technology to produce fitness - faking gadgets is guided by the government’s desire to control the minds of citizens and keep citizens away from engaging in trouble - making activities.
III. Countries that have the most advanced technology often are the ones that are at the forefront of preparedness for wars.
IV. The era of colonial expansion that was engaged in by the European nations after the renaissance would have never taken place had the technology to produce fitness - faking gadgets existed during those times.
V. Teenagers having access to technology, engage in more socializing away from parental supervision than those who do not have access to such technology.

Nature is ___________ and unchangeable, and it is ___________ as to whether its hidden reasons and ___________ are __________to man or not.

The option that best fills the blanks in the above sentence would be:

Impressions are direct, vivid, and forceful products of immediate experience; ideas are merely feeble copies of these original impressions.

Assuming the above statement is true, which of the statements logically follow from it?
I. Every impression leads to an idea.
II. Ideas must follow an antecedent impression.
III. The colour of the 2011 XAT test booklet right in front of a candidate is an impression to her, whereas the memory of the colour of her television set is an idea.
IV. If one was interested in origin of the idea of the colour of a television set, then one need to understand the impressions from which this idea was derived.

Media are not just passive channels of information. Not only do they supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the internet seems to be doing is chipping away our capacity for concentration. Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the argument presented above?

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the argument presented in the previous question?

Randomness has to be dealt with successfully to ensure a better control over one’s life. Before one can deal effectively with randomness, one must acknowledge its existence.
The above statement implies the following except:

Perhaps this war will pass like the others which divided us, leaving us dead, killing us along with the killers but the shame of this time puts its burning fingers to our faces. Who will erase the ruthlessness hidden in innocent blood?
Which of the following is certainly not implied in the above verse?

Travelling is my hobby. Today in the Himalayas, as I drag my feet through the __________, I cannot but think of the same time last year when I was negotiating
the thick _________ of the Ganges delta or for that matter the time I spent with my children __________ about in the waters of the Arabian Sea.
The option that best fills the blanks in the above sentence would be:

In spite of being perceived as ______ by all, the club members decided to ______ Arun, a skinny teenage with prominent ___________, as the member of the year, so that the whole affair would be __________ to Arun’s father who was recuperating after a serious illness.
The option that best fills the blanks in the above sentence would be:

Few sentences are given below continuously. Identify the best sequence of punctuations among the given option s. (The rule of capitalization at the beginning of sentences has been ignored in the passage given below). Note: the arrows in the options indicate text that would be within the punctuations.

a persons frames of perception and action are narrow in early stages of development focused on social membership and technical competence the early life of the organizations often is focused on survival and efficiency only later and rarely emphasizing process of
learning and development however in later stages both individual and organization become more concerned with the learning process itself the way the perceptions and practices are articulated and revised in interactions and how more people can be engaged in mutual learning and inquiry

Choose the odd one:

Choose the odd one:

Read the following sentences and choose the option that best arranges them in a logical order.
1. In law a fiduciary individual is someone who is entrusted with the power to act on behalf of and for the benefit of another.
2. Following the weight of corporate law and legal precedent, the director primacy model positions directors as autonomous fiduciaries, not agents.
3. The term fiduciary derives from the Latin fiducia, or trust, and the fiduciary is expected to act in good faith and honesty for the beneficiary’s interests.
4. A person who accepts the role of fiduciary in law must single - mindedly pursue the interests of his or her beneficiary, in this case the corporation, even when the latter cannot monitor or control the fiduciary’s behaviour.

Read the sentences and choose the option that best arranges them in a logical order.

a. Generally, it is unusual for a new problem in international relations to be considered without at the same time some international organization being developed to deal with it.
b. International society has, in spite of the diversity of culture and political systems, been progressively drawn closer together and become more unified.
c. Despite the fears and concerns of some governments that international organizations are increasing too fast and that they are a burden on their exchequers, they are still proliferating at a considerable rate.
d. People and their governments now look far beyond national frontiers and feel a common responsibility for the major problems of the world and for lesser problems that may subsist within smaller groups of states.
e. More recently in the 1990s the problems of international trade, which was growing increasingly complex, led to the development of the WTO.
f. For instance, concern with the instability of commodities markets led to the establishment in the 1980s of the Common Fund for Commodities and the competition for the newly discovered wealth of the international seabed area resulted in the creation of the ISA under the Law of the Sea Convention of 1982, based on the concept of the ‘the common heritage of mankind’.

As the information on air warfare tasks and stressors was being gathered and scenarios were being developed, a parallel effort ensued to identify a test bed simulation for air warfare teams. To maintain experimental control, it was determined by the designers that choosing a low physical fidelity simulation was acceptable as long as cognitive fidelity in a team simulation was maintained through subjecting soldiers to pressure situations in a simulated combat setting and attempting to ensure that naturalistic decision making of soldiers would not be compromised.
Which of the following statements, if true, weakens the logic of the above passage?
i. A number of studies have shown that high levels of physical stress lead to a weakening of the decision - making capabilities of human beings.
ii. It has been convincingly demonstrated by various studies that human beings by nature are not designed to adapt to high levels of mental stress.
iii. Numerous studies have shown that simulated environments can be designed to be good substitutes for real - life combat situations.
iv. Studies have shown that simulated exercises for armed forces personnel have tended to induce a systematic type of “correct” and common behaviour among the trainees.
v. Officers, when short - listing soldiers for critical operations, pick up battle - hardened soldiers rather than those who have been trained through simulations.

Which of the following statements, if true, would weaken the underlying logic of the above passage?
i. The human need for order is a highly exaggerated notion. It more often than not leads to creation of theories about the universe. The more sensational the theory, the more prevalent it becomes.
ii. The universe is less guided by pure randomness than by well - defined natural processes which are subjected to randomness at varying intervals of time and space.
iii. To strengthen their case for a variety of conspiracies the conspiracy buffs are extrapolating from a very small set of observed “coincidences”.
iv. The persons propounding the different conspiracy theories are usually novelists who use these theories as a backdrop during the construction of the plots of the novels.
v. The human fear of being kept in the dark is much stronger than the fear of lack of order in the working of the universe.

Which of the following statements would, if true, strengthen the case for belief in sinister forces and conspiracies being at work in the above paragraph?
i. Though science has progressed a lot in the last two centuries or so, it is still unable to explain/account for more than 80% of the phenomena in the universe.
ii. There is now the existence of photographic evidence of presence of UFOs and a growing number of parallel studies showing that the human mind can easily be manipulated to do someone else’s will through various events that manipulate the ‘perceived reality’.
iii. The fear of our actions and thoughts being controlled by someone else has intensified with the widespread popularity of the depiction of its gory outcomes by different novelists and movie makers.
iv. There is a strong movement to reintroduce the teachings of the biblical evolutionary process and the presence of God in schools around the world.
v. The Darwinian study of evolution of species, the cornerstone of beliefs in fathomable randomness of the workings of the universe has come under a scathing attack for its inaccurate depiction of the causes and process of evolution.

The motivation of human beings towards their work is a subject matter that is at once a simple as well as an extremely complicated matter. For a long time, economists, sociologists, as well as psychologists believed that a carrot and stick approach, with monetary incentives playing the role of the carrot, would be sufficient to goad employees towards achieving higher levels of performance. However, a number of recent studies and observations, especially dealing with the open source revolution are placing on the table strong evidence suggesting that monetary incentives are only one part of the entire story of motivation through incentives. In a study conducted by a group of researchers at MIT, it was found that monetary incentives work well only in respect of tasks requiring mechanical skills i.e. those tasks not requiring much use of higher level cognitive abilities (such as memorizing or problem solving). In fact their study showed that setting high monetary incentives for tasks requiring cognitive abilities were more likely than not to produce adverse outcomes. Since this result flew straight in the face of the widely accepted body of knowledge on employee motivation, they conducted multiple experiments in different settings and countries to ensure that it was not a one - off result. The findings were the same in all repetitions of the experiment. These studies appear to suggest that monetary incentives need to be provided only to such an extent as to take the minds of employees off the issue of money and focus on other issues that are necessary to get the job done right. For instance, some experiments have shown that greater autonomy to employees and lowered interference from management (and bosses) is successful in driving the performance of employees working in cognitive skill intensive jobs.

Identify the statement(s) that is (are) logically consistent with the con tent of the paragraph

i. The carrot - stick approach essentially requires the use of rewards to get more of a desired behaviour whereas penalties lead to increased undesirable behaviour.
ii. Expending time and effort on the design of monetary incentives is a wasteful exercise.
iii. The study by the group of MIT researchers was a flawed exercise from the start.
iv. There appears to be a need to reorient the existing paradigm prevalent in incentive design.
v. During the process of designing incentives, one should clearly delineate activities into those requiring mechanical skills and those requiring higher - level cognitive skills and design with separate sets of incentives and penalties for each.

Which of the following statements could be considered as logically consistent with the views of paradox in the above paragraphs?
i. A fly travelling on a flying arrow perceives it to be at rest. Therefore the flying arrow belongs to the realm of being.
ii. The activities of the day to day life are concerned with the unreal part of human existence and hence, should not be subject to moral standards.
iii. Maintaining a balance among the various constituents of society is essential to the well - being and the continuing existence of the soul.
iv. Conflicts and the coming of spontaneous order do not have any underlying causes that are relevant for study as the notion of perpetual flux itself is erroneous.
v. The real is and cannot be non - existent. Further, reality is one and unique.

Which of the following statements best represents an implication of Herodox’s ideas?

There has been criticism about reviewers that they write reviews after having a cursory reading of the book in question. Based on the analysis of the different reviews, which reviewer is most likely to have read the book in greater detail as compared to the other reviewers?

Out the five reviews given, which one can be most objectively validated?

Which reviewer eulogises the author rather than critically reviews the novels?