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XAT QuestionPaper With Answer Key i.e held on 2009.
SECTION A: VERBAL AND LOGICAL ABILITY
Analyse the following passage and provide an appropriate answer for the question nos. 1
through 2 that follow.
In Hume_s eyes productive labour was the greatest asset of a country, and foreign trade was
valuable because it enabled a nation to use more and more varied labour than would otherwise be
possible. But commerce was of mutual advantage to the nations involved, not a benefit to one and
injury to other. “The increase of riches and commerce in any one nation,” added Hume, “instead
of hurting, commonly, promotes the riches and commerce of all its neighbours.” “The emulation
in rival nations serves ... to keep industry alive in all of them.”
1. The importance of foreign trade, in eyes of Hume, was due to that:
A. it allowed the employment of surplus labour in a nation.
B. it allowed the diversion of labour to export oriented industries.
C. it allowed the deeper specialisation of the same labour force.
D. it allowed varied application of labour force in a nation.
E. it allowed application of varied labour force in a nation.
2. As per Hume, free trade between nations was made advantageous by the outcome of:
A. mutual increases in riches and commerce.
B. emulation of industrial activity by different nations.
C. affable promotion of industrial activity among nations.
D. productive employment of labour in different nations.
E. higher wages received by labour in exporting nations.
Questions (3-5): Identify the correct sentences from the options given below.
3.
A. When kite flying you can always tell when you lose a kite because the string feels loose.
B. When kite flying you can always tell when you loose a kite because the string feels lose.
C. When kite flying you can always tell when you loose a kite because the string feels loose.
D. When flying a kite, you can, always tell when you lose a kite because the string feels lose.
E. While flying a kite, you can always tell if you lost a kite when the string felt lose.
4.
A. If XAT aspirants had not taken so long checking each question before attempting the next
question they might not have run out of time.
B. If XAT aspirants had taken so long checking each question before attempting the next question
they might not have run out of time.
C. Had XAT aspirants not took so long checking every question before attempting the next
question they might not have run out of time.
D. If XAT aspirants had took so long checking each and every question before attempting the
next question they might not have run out of time.
E. Had XAT aspirants not taken so long checking all questions before attempting the next
question they might not have run out of time.
5.
A. The news channel agreed to report that next Sunday the couple had been married for 10 years.
B. The news channel agreed to report that next Sunday the couple will have been married for 10
years.
C. The news channel agreed to report that next Sunday the couple will be married for 10 years.
D. The news channel agreed to report that next Sunday the couple could have been married for 10
years.
E. The news channel agreed to report that next Sunday the couple has been married since 10
years.
For questions 6 & 7 go through the following passage.
The Yoga system is divided into two principal parts -- Hatha and Raja Yoga. Hatha Yoga deals
principally with the physiological part of man with a view to establish his health and train his will.
The processes prescribed to arrive at this end are so difficult that only a few resolute souls go
through all the stages of its practice. Many have failed and some have died in the attempt. It is
therefore strongly denounced by all the philosophers. The most illustrious Shankaracharya has
remarked in his treatise called Aparokshanubhuti that “the system of Hatha Yoga was intended for
those whose worldly desires are not pacified or uprooted.”
6. Which one of the following, if true, most substantially strengthens the idea given in the
passage?
A. The percentage of people in a given ashram practicing Raja Yoga is more than the percentage
of people practicing Hatha Yoga.
B. The number of people in a given ashram practicing Raja Yoga is more that the number of
people practicing Hatha Yoga.
C. The number of Yoga schools teaching Raja Yoga is more than the number of Yoga schools
teaching Hatha Yoga.
D. The number of teachers teaching Raja Yoga is more than the number of teachers teaching
Hatha Yoga.
E. The percentage of students who have successfully learnt Raja Yoga is more than the
percentage of students who have successfully learnt Hatha Yoga.
7. Which of the following option best reflects Shankaracharya_s comments on Hatha Yoga?
A. Hatha Yoga is for those whose worldly desires are not placated.
B. Hatha Yoga has disastrous consequences for Yoga practitioners.
C. Practiced under the guidance of experts, Hatha Yoga is better than Raja Yoga for some people.
D. Raja Yoga gives better results and in a shorter time period for most people, and therefore it
should be encouraged.
E. Hatha Yoga is ill-suited for people with strong worldly desires.
Analyse the following passage and provide and appropriate answer of the questions 8
through 10 that follow.
The greens_ success has clear policy implications, especially on issues of nuclear power,
ecological tax reform, and citizenship rights. But success also has implications for parties
themselves. Greens have always faced a unique „strategic conundrum_ arising from their unique
beliefs and movement roots. Put simply, how can they reconcile their radical alternative politics
with participation in mainstream or „grey_ parliamentary and government structures? Throughout
the 1990s most parties shed their radical cloth in an attempt to capture votes, even at the expense
of party unity and purity. Most were rewarded with electoral success well beyond what had been
imaginable in the 1980s. The price to pay has been tortured internal debates about strategy, and
new questions about green party identity and purpose. Today the key questions facing green
parties revolve around not whether to embrace power, but what to do with it. More specifically,
green parties face three new challenges in the new millennium: first, how to carve out a policy
niche as established parties and governments become wiser to green demands, and as green
concerns themselves appear more mainstream. Second, how to make green ideas beyond the
confines of rich industrialised states into Eastern Europe and the developing world where green
parties remain marginal and environmental problems acute. Third, how to ensure that the broader
role of green parties- as consciousness raisers, agitators, conscience of parliament and politics- is
not sacrificed on the altar of electoral success. Green parties have come a long way since their
emergence and development in the 1970s and 1980s. They have become established players able
to shape party competition, government formation, and government policy. But this very
„establishment_ carries risk for a party whose core values and identities depend mightily on their
ability to challenge the conventional order, to agitate and to annoy. For most green parties, the
greatest fear is not electoral decline so much as the prospect of becoming a party with
parliamentary platform, ministerial voice, but nothing to say.
8. Which out of the following is closest in meaning to the first three challenges mentioned in the
paragraph?
A. Niche of green parties is being eroded by mainstream parties.
B. Green parties are finding it difficult to find new strategy.
C. Green parties have become stronger over a period of time.
D. Some green parties are becoming grey.
E. Non green parties are becoming less relevant than green parties.
9. Which of the following is the most important point that author highlights?
A. Challenges before green parties to change their strategy from green activism to green
governance.
B. How should green parties win confidence and support of governments?
C. Transformation of green parties in recent decades.
D. Green movement is not strong in developing countries.
E. Non green parties are becoming less relevant than green parties.
10. How best can mainstream political parties, in India, keep green parties at bay?
A. By imposing a green tax.
B. By allowing carbon trading.
C. By including green agenda in their governance.
D. By hiring Al Gore, the Nobel prize winner, as an ambassador.
E. By not letting green parties fight elections.
Page 3 of 34
Analyse the following passage and provide an appropriate answer for the questions 11
through 13 that follow.
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, also known as the linguistic relativity hypothesis, refers to the
proposal that the particular language one speaks influences the way one thinks about reality. The
linguistic relativity hypothesis focuses on structural differences among natural languages such as
Hopi, Chinese, and English, and asks whether the classifications of reality implicit in such
structures affect our thinking about reality. Analytically, linguistic relativity as an issue stands
between two others: a semiotic-level concerns with how speaking any natural language
whatsoever might influence the general potential for human thinking (i.e., the general role of
natural language in the evolution or development of human intellectual functioning), and a
functional- or discourse-level concern with how using any given language code in a particular way
might influence thinking (i.e., the impact of special discursive practices such as schooling and
literacy on formal thought). Although analytically distinct, the three issues are intimately related
in both theory and practice. For example, claims about linguistic relativity depend on
understanding the general psychological mechanisms linking language to thinking, and on
understanding the diverse uses of speech in discourse to accomplish acts of descriptive reference.
Hence, the relation of particular linguistic structures to patterns of thinking forms only one part of
the broader ray of questions about the significance of language for thought. Proposals of linguistic
relativity necessarily develop two linked claims among the key terms of the hypothesis (i.e.,
language, thought, and reality). First, languages differ significantly in their interpretations of
experienced reality- both what they select for representation and how they arrange it. Second,
language interpretations have influences on thought about reality more generally- whether at the
individual or cultural level. Claims for linguistic relativity thus require both articulating the
contrasting interpretations of reality latent in the structures of different languages, and accessing
their broader influences on, or relationships to, the cognitive interpretation of reality.
11. Which of the following conclusions can be derived based on Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?
A. Americans and Indians would have similar intelligence.
B. South Indians and North Indians would have similar intelligence.
C. Those with same intelligence would speak the same language.
D. Those with similar intelligence may speak the same language.
E. Structure of language does not affect cognition.
12. If Sapir-Whorf hypothesis were to be true, which of the following conclusions would
logically follow?
1. To develop vernacular languages, government should promote public debates and discourses.
2. Promote vernacular languages as medium of instruction in schools.
3. Cognitive and cultural realities are related.
A. 1 only
B. 2 only
C. 3 only
D. 1 and 2
E. 1, 2 and 3
Page 4 of 34
13. Which of the following proverbs may be false, if above passage were to be right?
1. If speech is silver, silence is gold.
2. When you have spoken a word, it reigns over you. When it is unspoken you reign over it.
3. Speech of yourself ought to be seldom and well chosen.
A. 1 and 2
B. 2 and 3
C. 3 only
D. 1 only
E. 1, 2 and 3
Analyse the following passage and provide an appropriate answer for the questions 14
through 17 that follow.
Demography of organisations, also called population ecology is an interesting field. It proposes
that organisational mortality processes depend upon the age and size of the organisation, as well
as on characteristics of populations and environments. Moreover, there is evidence of an
imprinting process - meaning that environmental conditions at certain early phases in an
organisation_s development have long-term consequences. In particular, organisations subject to
intense competition have elevated mortality hazards at all ages. A central theme is structural
inertia, the tendency for organisations to respond slowly relative to the speed of environmental
change. A central argument holds that the inertia derives from the very characteristics that make
organisations favoured actors in modern society in terms of reliability and (formal) accountability.
It follows that changes in an organisation_s core features are disruptive and increase mortality
hazards, at least in the short-run. Research on this subject tends to support this view. The concept
of niche provides a framework of relative environmental variations and competition to population
dynamics and segmentation. Much empirical work examines the niches of organisational
populations in terms of dimensions of social, political, and economic environments. Most
research in this field builds on theories of resource partition and of density dependence. Resourcepartitioning
theory concerns the relationship between increasing market concentration and
increasing proliferation of specialists in mature industries. The key implication of this theory
concerns the effects of concentration on the viability of specialist organisations (those that seek to
exploit a narrow range of resources). The theory of density-dependent organisational evolution
synthesizes ecological and institutional processes. It holds that growth in the number of
organisations in a population (density) drives processes of social legitimatization and competition
that, in turn, shape the vital rates.
14. Most top-notch business consultants recommended changing the entire configuration of an
organisation_s strategy, structure and systems. If the ideas contained in the passage are agreed
to, then such a recommendation:
A. tends to rejuvenate the organisation.
B. tends to make the organisation more aligned to the external environment.
C. tends to increase the competitiveness of the organisation by redefining its core competence.
D. tends to increase the vulnerability of the organisation.
E. tends to make the organisation industry leader by reformulating its niche.