XAT 2008

Directions for Questions 1-21: Each group of questions in this section is based on a set of conditions. In answering some of the questions, it may be useful to draw a rough diagram.

Directions for Questions 1-4: There are exactly ten stores and no other buildings on a straight street in Bistupur Market. On the northern side of the street, from West to East, are stores 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9; on the southern side of the street, also from West to East, are stores 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10. The stores on the northern side are located directly across the street from those on the southern side, facing each other in pairs, as follows: 1 and 2; 3 and 4; 5 and 6; 7 and 8; 9 and 10. Each store is decorated with lights in exactly one of the following colours: green, red, and yellow. The stores have been decorated with lights according to the following conditions:

No store is decorated with lights of the same colour as those of any store adjacent to it.

No store is decorated with lights of the same colour as those of the store directly across the street from it.

Yellow lights decorate exactly one store on each side of the street.

Red lights decorate store 4.

Yellow lights decorate store 5.

1. Which one of the following could be an accurate list of the colours of the lights that decorate stores 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10, respectively?

(a) Green, red, green, red, green

(b) Green, red, green, yellow, red

(c) Green, red, yellow, red, green

(d) Yellow, green, red, green, red

(e) Yellow, red, green, red, yellow

2. If green lights decorate store 7, then each of the following statements could be false EXCEPT:

(a) Yellow lights decorate store 2.

(b) Greenlights decorate store 10.

(c) Red lights decorate store 8.

(d) Red lights decorate store 9.

(e) Green lights decorate store 2.

3. Which one of the following statements MUST be true?

(a) Greenlights decorate store 10.

(b) Red lights decorate store 1.

(c) Yellow lights decorate store 10.

(d) Red lights decorate store 8.

(e) Yellow lights decorate store 8.

4. Given that yellow lights decorate exactly two stores on the south side of the street and exactly one store on the north side. If all other conditions remain the same, then which one of the following statements MUST be true?

(a) Red lights decorate store 10.

(b) Green lights decorate store 1.

(c) Red lights decorate store 7.

(d) Yellow lights decorate store 8.

(e) Yellow lights decorate store 2.

Directions for Questions 5-8: Six square states having equal area in a country are located in North-South direction in two columns next to each other. States are located in the given order: State 1, State 3 and State 5 are on the western side and State 2, State 4 and State 6 are on the eastern side. Within the six states, there are exactly four medical institutes, two management institutes, and two technical institutes. These eight institutions are located as follows:

No institution is in more than one states.

None of the states contain more than one management institute, and none contains more than one technical institute.

None of the states contain both a management institute and a technical institute.

Each management institute is located in a state that contains at least one medical institute.

The technical institutes are located in two states that do not share a common boundary. State 3 contains a technical institute and State 6 contains a management institute.

5. Which one of the following could be true?

(a) State 1 contains exactly one technical institute.

(b) State 1 contains exactly one medical institute.

(c) State 2 contains exactly one management institute.

(d) State 5 contains exactly one technical institute.

(e) State 6 contains exactly one technical institute.

6. A complete and accurate list of the states, any one of which could contain the

management institute that is not in State 6, would be___________.

(a) 1,4 (b)2,4

(c) 4, 5 (d)l,4,5

(e)l,2, 4,5

7. If each of the six states contains at least one of the eight institutions, then which one of the following must be true?

(a) There is a management institute in State 1.

(b) There is a medical institute in State 2.

(c) There is a medical institute in State 3.

(d) There is a medical institute in State 4.

(e) There is a management institute in State 4.

8. If one of the states contains exactly two medical institutes and exactly one technical institute, then which combination of three states might contain no medical institute?

(a) 1,3, 5 (b)l,4,5

(c) 2, 3, 5 (d) 2, 4, 6

(e) 4, 5, 6

Directions for Questions 9-12: During a four-week period, each one of seven previously unadvertised products, G, H, J, K, L, M and O—will be advertised. A different pair of these products will be advertised each week. Exactly one of the products will be a member of two of these four pairs. None of the other products gets repeated in any pair. Further, the following constraints must be observed:

J is not advertised during a given week unless H is advertised during the week immediately preceding it.

The product that is advertised twice is advertised during week 4 but is not advertised during week 3.

G is not advertised during a given week unless either J or O is also advertised that week.

K is advertised during one of the first two weeks.

O is one of the products advertised during week 3.

9. Which one of the following could be the schedule of the advertisements?

(a) Week 1: G, J; week 2: K, L; week 3: O, M; week 4: H, L

(b) Week 1: H, K; week 2: J, G; week 3: O, L; week 4: M, K

(c) Week 1: H, K; week 2: J, M; week 3: O, L; week 4: G, M

(d) Week 1: H, L; week 2: J, M; week 3: O, G; week 4: K, L

(e) Week 1: K, M; week 2: H, J; week3: O, G; week 4: L, M

10.

(a) K (b) H

(c) J (d) G

(e)M

11. Which one of the following is a product that could be advertised in any of the four weeks?

(a) H (b) J

(c) K (d) L

(e)O

12. Which one of the following is a pair of products that could be advertised during the same week?

(a) G and H (b) H and J

(c) H and O (d) K and O

(e) M and O

Directions for Questions 13-17: In a game, ‘words’ (meaningful or meaningless) consist of any combination of at least five letters of the English alphabets. A ‘sentence’ consists of exactly six words and satisfies the following conditions:

The six words are written from left to right on a single line in alphabetical order. The sentence can start with any word, and the successive word is formed by applying exactly one of three operations to the preceding word: delete one letter; add a letter; replace one letter with another. At the most three of the six words can begin with the same letter. Except for the first word, each word is formed by a different operation used for the preceding word.

13. Which one of the following could be a sentence in the word game?

(a) Bzaeak blaeak Iaeak paeak paea paean

(b) Crobek croeek roeek soeek sxoeek xoeek

(c) Doteam goleam golean olean omean omman

(d) Feted Ifeted reted seted seteg aseteg

(e) Forod forol forols forpls orpls morpls

14. The last letter of the English alphabet that the first word of a sentence in the word game can begin with is:

(a) X (b) t

(c) w (d) ó

(e)z

15. If the first word in a sentence is “illicit” and the fourth word is “licit”, then the third word can be

(a) Enlist (b) Implicit

(c) Explicit (d) Inlist

(e) Elicit

16. If ‘clean’ is the first word in a sentence and ‘learn’ is another word in the sentence, then which one of the following is a complete and accurate list of the positions ‘learn’ could occupy?

(a) Third, fourth

(b) Third

(c) Second, third, fourth

(d) Third, fourth, fifth

(e) Third, fourth, fifth, sixth

17.

(a) Six (b) Four

(c) Five (d) Seven

(e) Eight

Directions for Questions 18-21: Professor Mukhopadhay works only on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. She performs four different activities— Lecturing, conducting quizzes, evaluating quizzes and working on consultancy projects. Each working day she performs exactly one activity in the morning and exactly one activity in the afternoon. During each week her work schedule MUST satisfy the following restrictions:

She conducts quizzes on exactly three mornings.

If she conducts quizzes on Monday, she does not conduct a quiz on Tuesday.

She lectures in the afternoon on exactly two consecutive calendar days.

She evaluates quizzes on exactly one morning and three afternoons.

She works on consultancy project on exactly one morning.

On Saturday, she neither lectures nor conducts quizzes.

18. On Wednesdays, the professor could be scheduled to:

(a) Work on a consultancy project in the morning and conduct a quiz in the afternoon.

(b) Lecture in the morning and evaluate quizzes in the afternoon.

(c) Conduct a quiz in the morning and lecture in the afternoon.

(d) Conduct a quiz in the morning and work on consultancy project in the afternoon.

(e) Evaluate quizzes in the morning and evaluate quizzes in the afternoon.

19. Which of the following statements must be true?

(a) There is one day on which she evaluates quizzes both in the morning and in the afternoon.

(b) She works on the consultancy project on one of the days on which the lectures.

(c) She works on the consultancy project on one of the days on which she

evaluates quizzes.

(d) She lectures on one of the days on which she evaluates quizzes.

(e) She lectures on one of the days on which she conducts quizzes.

20. If the Professor conducts a quiz on Tuesday, then her schedule for evaluating quizzes could be?

(a) Monday morning, Monday afternoon, Friday morning, Friday afternoon

(b) Monday morning, Friday afternoon, Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon

(c) Monday afternoon, Wednesday morning, Wednesday afternoon, Saturday afternoon

(d) Wednesday morning, Wednesday afternoon, Friday afternoon, Saturday afternoon

(e) Wednesday afternoon, Friday afternoon, Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon

21.

(a) Monday (b) Wednesday

(c) Tuesday (d) Saturday

(e) Friday

Read the following situation and choose the best possible alternative.

Directions for Question 22: The surnames of four professionals are: Bannerji, Chatterji, Mukherji and Pestonji. Their professions are accountant, lawyer, dentist and doctor (not necessarily in this order). The accountant and lawyer work in their offices, while the dentist and doctor work in their nursing homes. The accountant looks after Mukherji’s and Chatterji⁵S account. Chatterji, does not know Bannerji, although his nursing home is in the same street as Bannerji⁵S office. Chatterji is not a doctor.

What are the occupations of the four people?

(a) Bannerji-Doctor, Chatterji-Accountant, Mukherji-Dentist and Pestonji- Lawyer

(b) Bannerji-Doctor, Chatterji-Dentist, Mukherji-Accountant and Pestonji- Lawyer

(c) Bannerji-Lawyer, Chatterji-Dentist, Mukherji-Accountant and Pestonji- Doctor

(d) Bannerji-Lawyer, Chatterji-Dentist, Mukherji-Doctor and Pestonji- Accountant

(e) Bannerji-Dentist, Chatterji-Lawyer, Mukherji-Doctor and Pestonji- Accountant

Go through the situation and the accompanying table, and pick up the best alternative to answer Question Nos. 23-24

Directions for Questions 23-24: There are five sets of digits—Set A, Set B, Set C, Set D and Set E as shown in given table. Set A contains one digit, Set B contains two digits, Set C contains three digits, Set D contains two digits and Set E contains one digit. Rearrange the digits, across the sets such that the number formed out of digits of Set C is a multiple of the numbers formed from digits in the sets on either side. For example; in the given diagram, Set C is a multiple of digits in Set A and Set B but not of Set D and Set E.

23. What is the minimum number of rearrangements required to arrive at the solution? A rearrangement is defined as an exchange of positions between digits across two sets. For example: when 1 from set C is exchanged with 5 of set E, it is counted as one rearrangement.

(a) 8 (b) 5

(c) 2 (d) 3

(e)7

24. Which of the following pair of digits would occupy set A and E?

(a) 2 and 4 (b) 2 and 6

(c) 4 and 8 (d) 3 and 6

(e) 3 and 9

Directions for Questions 25-28: Read the following situations and choose the best possible alternative.

25. A database software manufacturing company found out that a product it has launched recently had a few bugs. The product has already been bought by more than a million customers. The company realised that bugs could cost its customers significantly. However if it informs the customers about the bug, it feared losing credibility. What would be the most ethical option for the company?

(a) Apologize and fix up the bug for all customers even if it has to incur losses.

(b) Keep silent but introduce an improved product that is bug free at the earliest.

(c) Do not tell the customers about bugs and remove only when customers face problems, even if it means losses for the customers.

(d) Keep silent and do nothing.

(e) Take the product off the market and apologize to customers.

26. The city ofNagar has a population of 10 million, 2 million amongst whom were rich, 3 million poor and 5 million belonged to the middle class. Saundarya Cosmetics manufactured and sold beauty products to the rich class at a premium price. Its products were very popular with customers. Many people from the middle and poor segments of population aspired to buy these products but could not afford because of high prices. Oflate, sales growth was stagnating in the rich segment. Which of the following is the best option for Saundarya Cosmetics to maximise its long-term profits?

(a) Sell the same products at lower prices to middle and poor classes.

(b) Sell its products under different brand names to middle and poor classes.

(c) Sell similar products, of different quality standards with different brand names, to middle classes and poor classes.

(d) Continue to target rich only and hope that today’s middle class would be tomorrow’s rich class.

(e) Target middle class as it is the largest segment and forget about rich class.

27. Seema was a finance manager in an MNC and felt that gender discrimination at workplace hampered her career growth. Frustrated, she quit the job and started a company. While starting her company, Seema decided that she would have equal proportion of males and females. Over the last six years, Seema emerged as a very successful entrepreneur and expanded her business to eight locations in the country. However, Seema recently started facing an ethical dilemma because she realised that female employees were not willing to travel across cities and work late hours, as the work required them to do so. Male employees did not hesitate undertaking such work. Seema started to feel the pressure of reducing the proportion of female employees. On the other hand, she is aware that equal representation was one of the strongest reasons for her to have founded the company. What should she do as a conscientious female entrepreneur?

(a) See if unwilling female employees could be given assignments which do not require travel and involve less overtime.

(b) Reduce the number of female employees as it is a business requirement. She should not let anything affect her business.

(c) Let the status quo continue.

(d) Henceforth hire only male employees.

(e) She should close the business.

28. You, a recruitment manager, are interviewing Mayank, a hard-working young man, who had problem in speaking fluent English. He has studied in vernacular medium school and colleges. Amongst the following options, what would you choose to do, if your company has vacancies?

(a) I would hire him for production or finance job but not for marketing job, which requires good communication skills.

(b) I would ask him to improve his communication skills and come back again.

(c) I would hire him at all costs.

(d) I would not hire him as he might be a burden on the organisation because of his poor communication skills.

(e) I would hire him for the job he is good at, and provide training in other areas.

Directions for Questions 29-31: Go through the table that follows and pickup the best alternative to answer the questions that follow.

Teams A, B, C and D are participating in a cricket tournament. Team A has to pick up five batsmen out of ten available. All batsmen have played 100 matches each in the past. Past data indicates that C beats A 8 out of 10 times. B beats A 5 out of 10 times and D beats A 1 out of 10 times. The conditions for the series are likely to be normal and bowling strength of all the teams is same. Manager of Team A, based on his past experience feels that the team should take high risk against stronger opponents and low risk against weaker opponents for maximising chances of winning the game.

The average score of the top 10 batsman of Team A is provided in the table given below.

The average score of the top 5 batsmen for each team playing in the tournament are: C(270); B(215); D(180)and A (215).

29. Team A would play the third match with B. Based on the statistics above, whom should the manager choose so that A has maximum chances of winning?

(a) RD, RU, MK, VS, YS

(b) RD, VS, MT, RU, YS

(c) ST, RD, MK, MD, SG

(d) RD, W, SG, VS, MD

(e) SG, RU, YS, MK, W

30. Team A is playing its first match with team C. Based on the statistics above, whom should the manager choose so that the team has maximum chances of winning?

(a) RD, ST, SG, VS, MD

(b) VS, YS, RU, MD, MT

(c) RD, ST, SG, MD, YS

(d) YS, RU, VS, MK, MD

(e) ST, VS, RU, MD, SG

31. Team A would play the second match with D. Based on the statistics above, whom should the manager choose so that A has maximum chances of winning?

(a) RD, RU, MK, VS, YS

(b) SG, RU, YS, MK, MD

(c) ST, RD, MK, MD, SG

(d) ST, RD, W, SG, MD

(e) RD, ST, SG, VS, MD

Read the following caselet and choose the best alternative (Question 32-37):

Mr. Rajiv Singhal, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Loha India Ltd., (a steel manufacturing company) had just been visited by several other directors of the company. The directors were upset with recent actions of the company president, Mr. Ganesh Thakur. They demanded that the board consider firing the president.

Mr. Thakur, recently appointed as president, had undertaken to solve some of the management-employees problems by dealing directly with the individuals, as often as possible. The company did not have a history of strikes or any other form of collective action and was considered to have a good work culture. However, Mr. Thakur felt that by dealing directly with individuals, he could portray the management’s concern for the employees. An important initiative of Mr. Thakur was to negotiate wages of the supervisors with each supervisor. In these negotiation meetings he would not involve anyone else, including the Personnel Department which reported to him, so as to take an unbiased decision. After negotiation, a wage contract would be drawn up for each supervisor. This, he felt, would recognise and reward the better performers. Mr. Thakur successfully implemented the process for most of the supervisors, except those working in the night shift. For them he had drawn up the contracts unilaterally benchmarking the wages of supervisors of night shift with that of supervisors of the day shift.

For several days Ram Lal a night shift supervisor, had been trying to seek an appointment with Mr. Thakur about his wages. He was disgruntled, not only over his failure to see the president, but also over the lack of discussions about his wage contract prior to its being effected. As a family man with six dependents, he felt his weekly wage should be higher than that granted to him.

Last Thursday afternoon Ram Lal stopped by the president’s office and tried to see him. Mr. Thakur’s secretary refused his request on the grounds that Mr. Thakur was busy. Infuriated, Ram Lal stormed into the president’s office and confronted the startled Mr. Thakur, with his demands for a better wage. Mr. Thakur stood up and told Ram Lal to get out of his office and express his grievance through official channel. Ram Lal took a swing at the president who in turn punched Ram Lal on the jaw and knocked him unconscious.

32. The most likely premise behind Mr. Thakur’s initiative regarding individualised meetings with the supervisors seems to be

(a) Involvement of company’s president in wage problems of employees will lead to a better goodwill towards the management among the workers.

(b) Individual agreements with supervisors would allow the management to Preventanypossible collective action by the supervisors.

(c) Employee related policies should allow scope for bargaining by

(d) ?⅛?ιy‰ħ^lBg⅛e^uffi¾ffe4φ^ιa^,^∞∙to accept lesser wages individually in this way.

(e) He would be able to know who the trouble makers in the plant are by interacting with the supervisors.

33. Out of the following, which one seems to be the most likely cause of Ram Lal’s grievance?

(a) His disappointment with the management’s philosophy of having one to one interaction as the supervisors were in a way being forced to accept the wage contracts.

(b) His being in the night shift had worked to his disadvantage as he could not interact with the management regarding his problem.

(c) Employment in the night shift forced him to stay away from his family during the day time and therefore he could not interact with his family members much.

(d) He was not allowed to meet the chairman of the board of directors of the company.

(e) All of these.

34. The most important causal factor for this entire episode could be:

(a) Legalistic approach to employee problems.

(b) Trying to follow a divide-and-rule policy in his dealings with the supervisors.

(c) Paternalistic approach towards mature individuals in the organisation.

(d) Inconsistent dealings of Mr. Thakur with supervisors.

(e) Inadequate standards for measurement of supervisors’ on-the-job performance.

35. The situation with Mr. Lal could have been avoided if Mr. Thakur had

1. Delegated the task of negotiation of wage contracts for night shift employees to the Personnel department.

2. Created a process for supervisors working in the night shift so that they could have an opportunity to interact with him.

3. Created an open door policy that would have allowed employees to see him without any appointment.

4. Postponed the decision of wage revision for supervisors in the night shift for two months, since supervisors were rotated on different shifts after every two months.

The option that best arranges the above managerial interventions in decreasing order of organisational impact is:

(a) 4, 3,1,2 (b)4,2,3, 1

(c) 4, 3,2, 1 (d)4, 1,2,3

(e) 2, 3,1,4

36. Apart from the supervisors working the night shift, executives of which department will have the most justified reasons to be disgruntled with Mr. Thakur’s initiative?

1. Production department—for not being consulted regarding the behaviour of the supervisors on the shop floor.

2. Finance department—for not being taken into confidence regarding the financial consequences of the wage contracts.

3. Marketing department—for not being consulted on the likely impact of the wage contracts on the image of the company.

4. Quality control—for not being able to give inputs to Mr. Thakur on how to improve quality of steel making process.

5. Personnel department—for it was their work to oversee wage policies for employees and they had been ignored by Mr. Thakur.

(a) 1 + 3 + 4 (b) 1 + 2 + 3

(c) 1 + 4 + 5 (d) 1 + 2 + 5

(e) 3 + 4 + 5

37. Which of the following managerial attributes does Mr. Thakur seem to lack the most?

(a) Emotional instability under pressure

(b) Proactive problem solving

(c) Ethical behaviour

(d) Independent decision making

(e) Emotional stability under pressure

Directions for Questions 38-43: Go through the caselets below and answer the questions that follow.

Directions for Questions 38 and 39: According to recent reports, CEOs of large organisations are paid more than CEOs of small organisations. It does not seem fair that just because a CEO is heading a big organisation he/she should be paid more. CEOs salary should be related to performance, especially growth in terms of sales and profits. Of course, big organisations are more complex than the small, but all CEOs require significant amount of energy and time in managing organisations. There is no proof that CEOs of big organisations are more stressed than CEOs of small organisations. All CEOs should be paid according to their performance.

38. A person seeking to refute the argument might argue that

(a) CEOs should be paid equally.

(b) Managing big organisation is more challenging than small.

(c) CEOs, who travel more should be paid more.

(d) If CEOs of small companies perform well, the company would become big and so would be CEOs salary.

(e) Highly qualified CEOs should be paid more because they have acquired difficult education.

39. Which of the following, if true, would strengthen the speaker’s argument?

(a) CEOs of small organisations come from good educational background.

(b) A few big family businesses have CEOs from within the family.

(c) CEOs of big organisations are very difficult to hire.

(d) Big organisations contribute more towards moral development of society.

(e) CEOs in big organisation take much longer to reach the top, as compared to their counterparts in small organisations.

Directions for Questions 40 and 41: Hindi ought to be the official language of India. There is no reason for the government to spend money printing documents in different languages, just to cater to people who cannot read/write Hindi. The government has better ways to spend tax payers’ money. People across India should read/write Hindi or learn it at the earliest.

40. Which of the following, if true, would weaken the speaker’s argument the most?

(a) The government currently translates official documents into more than eighteen languages.

(b) Hindi is the most difficult language in the world to speak.

(c) People who are multilingual usually pay maximum taxes.

(d) Most people who travel across India learn Hindi within five years.

(e) Making Hindi the official language is a politically unpopular idea.

41. United Nations members contribute fimds, proportionate to their population, for facilitating smooth Umctioning of the UN. By 2010, India being the most populous nation on the planet, would contribute the maximum amount to the UN. Therefore, official language of United Nations should be changed to Hindi. Which of the following is true?

(a) The point above extends the speaker’s argument.

(b) The point above contradicts the speaker’s argument.

(c) The point above is similar to speaker’s argument.

(d) The point above concludes speaker’s argument.

(e) The point above strengthens the speaker’s argument.

Directions for Questions 42 and 43: The Bistupur-Sakchi corner needs a speed­breaker. Loyola school children cross this intersection, on their way to the school, and many a times do not check out for traffic. I get to read regular reports of cars and other vehicles hitting children. I know that speed-breakers are irritating for drivers, and I know that children cannot be protected from every danger, but this is one of the worst intersections in town. There needs to be a speed-breaker so that vehicles have to slow down and the children be made safer.

42. Which of the following arguments is used in the above passage?

(a) Analogy—comparing the intersection to something dangerous.

(b) Emotive—referring to the safety of children to get people interested.

(c) Attack—pointing out people who are against speed-breakers as being uncaring about children.

(d) Statistical analysis—noting the number of children hit by vehicles.

(e) Personalisation—telling the story of one child’s near accident at the intersection.

43. According to a recent research conducted by the district road planning department, ten per cent students come with parents in cars, twenty per cent students use auto-rickshaws, twenty per cent students use taxis, forty per cent students use the school buses and ten per cent students live in the hostel inside the school.

Which of the following is true about the above paragraph?

(a) It is similar to speaker’s argument.

(b) It extends the speaker’s argument using statistical data.

(c) It extends speaker’s argument using analogy.

(d) It concludes speaker ’ s argument by using personalisation.

(e) It contradicts the speaker’s argument using statistical data.

Directions for Questions 44 and 45: History, if viewed as a repository not merely of anecdotes or chronology, could produce a decisive transformation in the image of science by which we are now possessed. That image has previously been drawn, even by scientists themselves, mainly from the study of finished scientific achievements as these are recorded in the classics and, more recently, in the textbooks from which each new scientific generation learns to practice its trade.

44. Which of the following best summarises the above paragraph?

(a) Scientific achievements are recorded in classics and text books.

(b) Text books may be biased.

(c) Different ways of looking at history can produce altogether different knowledge.

(d) History of science can be inferred from finished scientific achievement

(e) All of above

45. Which of the following statements is the author most likely to agree with?

(a) History of science should purposely present different images of science to people.

(b) More number of scientific theories results in more number of publications, which benefits publishers.

(c) History of science should contain only the chronology of the scientific achievements.

(d) History of science presents a scientific way of looking at scientific developments and thus contributes to progress in science.

(e) History of science can present multiple interpretations to people regarding the process of scientific developments.

Directions for Questions 46 and 47: Go through the caselets below and answer the questions that follow.

46. Goodricke Group Ltd is planning to give top priority to core competence of production and marketing of tea in 2007. The company intends to increase the production of orthodox varieties of tea. Goodricke is planning to invest' 10 crore to modernise the factories. The company has announced a net profit of' 5.49 crore for 2006 as against' 3.76 crore in 2005.

Which of the following can be deduced from the caselet?

(a) Production and marketing is core competence of Goodricke Group.

(b) Increase in production of existing products enhances core competence.

(c) Core competence can be used for furthering company’s interests.

(d) Core competence leads to modernization.

(e) Goodricke has given top priority to production because it has earned net profits of' 5.49 crore.

47. The author reflects on the concept of Blue Ocean Strategy. He explains that this concept delivers an instinctive framework for developing uncontested market space and making the competition irrelevant. The author remarks that5∕uβ Ocean Strategy is about having the best mix of attributes that result in creation of uncontested market space and high growth, and not about being the best.

The above paragraph appears to be an attempt at

(a) developing the framework for Blue Ocean strategy.

(b) defining Blue Ocean strategy.

(c) reviewing an article or a book on Blue Ocean strategy.

(d) highlighting how Blue Ocean strategy leads to better returns.

(e) None of above

Answer Key

Solutions:

Solutions for Questions 1-4:

The basic grid representing the street with the shop numbers as shown would be as given below: (note: This is after using the last two clues in the problem statement viz: ‘Red lights decorate store 4.’ & ‘Yellow lights decorate store 5.’

From this point we can move further using the basic condition in the problem that there are three colours in the street: Red, yellow and green

AND the clues which say:

(i) No store is decorated with lights of the same colour as those of any store adjacent to it.

(ii) No store is decorated with lights of the same colour as those of the store directly across the street from it.

(iii) Yellow lights decorate exactly one store on each side of the street.

The following deductions can be made:

Shop 3 and 6 would have green color.

Since shop 3 has green and the yellow on the north side has been used, shop 1 would have Red.

These are the only definite conclusions we can make as stores 7 and 9 can have red/green or green/red while stores 8 and 10 can have yellow/red and green/red/yellow lights. Given this kind of situation in our solution, we can expect that the questions in this set would mostly ask for what is possible/what is not possible etc. In order to solve such questions we would need to move into the individual questions and check how the questions pan out and move into checking each option to see what is feasible.

1. Looking at the options, the possibility in options (c) and (d) get rejected because store 6 has to necessarily have a green light as seen from our solution grid above. Only options (a), (b) and (e) give us green in store 6. Out of these three options, option (a) and option (e) are rejected because there needs to be exactly one yellow in one of these five stores and option (a) gives us no yellow and option (e) gives us two yellows.

Thus, option (b) is the only possible solution and would give us the following grid:

Option (b) is the correct answer.

2. To our existing point in the solution when we add the information that green lights decorate store 7 we get the following grid:

The question asks us: What could be false except, which is the same as asking what would be definitely true in this situation.

Checking each of the options and comparing it to the grid we have above, we see that ‘Red lights decorating store 9’ is a necessity in this situation.

Hence, option (d) is correct.

3. The question asks us which of the following ‘Must be correct’. Also, we need to go back to only the basic information given in the question set as additional information provided for the previous question cannot be taken to be true for the next one unless specifically stated in the question.

Thus, we need to look into the original solution grid that we had and see which of the solutions match that.

If you check the options, you see that the statement ‘Red lights decorate store 10’ is a must. Hence, option (b) is correct.

4. If we need to place two yellow lighted stores into the southern side of the grid (all conditions remaining constant), we can easily see that we cannot place two consecutive yellows in stores 8 and 10. Thus, one of the two yellows on the southern side must be placed in Store 2. Hence, option (e) is correct.

Solutions for Questions 5-8:

The grid given to us in the problem would look as below:

In the above states we have to place 4 medical institutes, 2 management institutes and 2 technical institutes. Since, 1 technical institute and 1 management institute have already been placed, it means that we need to place 1 more of each.

Further information that we have gives us two major clues to place the remaining institutes:

(i) Each management institute is located in a state that contains at least one medical institute;

(ii) None of the states contain both a management and a technical institute;

(iii) The technical institutes are located in two states that do not share a common boundary.

(iv) None of the states contain more than one management institute and none contains more than one technical institute—which means that there can be a state containing more than one medical institute.

Using (iii) above, we get that the only states which do not share a boundary with State 3 are states 2 and 6. However, since state 6 already contains a management institute it cannot contain a technical institute, thus the other technical institute should be in State 2. Also, from (i) above we know that every management institute is located in a state which has at least 1 medical institute.

With this information, we get the following minimum placements in the above grid.

At this point we know the location of both the technical institutes and we also know the location of exactly one management institute as well as the location of at least one medical institute. What is unknown for us is/are:

Locationof 3 more medical institutes;

Location of 1 more management institute

Since we have used all the clues, we can move into the questions expecting could be/must be/cannot be kind of questions.

5. We can easily reject options (a), (c), (d) and (e) respectively as below:

State 1 cannot contain a technical institute as the two technical institutes are already fixed for States 2 and 3;

State 2 cannot contain a management institute as we already know that state 2 has a technical institute.

State 5 cannot contain a technical institute as the two technical institutes are already fixed for States 2 and 3;

State 6 cannot contain a technical institute as the two technical institutes are already fixed for States 2 and 3.

Only option (b) is possible in this situation.

Hence, option (b) is the correct answer.

6. The second management institute could be in any of the states 1, 4 or 5. Hence, option (d) is correct.

7. If each of the 6 states contain at least one institute it means that there are 2 states with exactly 1 technical institute (States 2 and 3—already fixed); There would be two states with exactly 1 management institute and 1 medical institute & there would be 2 states with exactly 1 medical institute each. The grid would look as below with the only variable being where the second management institute would be:

The true statement from the given options is option (d) i.e., there is a medical institute in State 3.

Hence, option (d) is correct.

8. If one state contains exactly two medical institutes and 1 technical institute that state would be either state 2 or state 3. Then the fourth medical institute would be with a management college in any of states 1, 3 or 5.

Checking the options, we can reject options (d) and (e) as these contain state 6 in them and we already know that state 6 has 1 medical college- hence state 6 cannot be a part of the list of 3 states where there is no management institute.

Option (c) can be rejected as it takes both states 2 and 3 into the list of 3 possible states, which have no medical institute. This cannot happen because we know that either one of these two states contains exactly 2 medical institutes.

Similarly, option (b) gets rejected as a possible list, because if there is no medical institute in any of the three states 1, 4 and 5, then it is a contradiction of the existing situation because we need to put 1 management institute and 1 medical institute in any of these three states.

Option (a) is the only possible answer as if there is no medical college in states 1, 3 and 5 we can still do the following arrangement to meet all the constraints of the problem:

In the above situation, there is no medical college in states 1, 3 and 5. Hence, option (a) is the correct answer.

Solutions for Questions 9-12:

The given situation talks about a 4 week period in each of which we need to advertise 2 products from amongst G, H, J, K, L, M and O with the given conditions.

The obvious grid we should make for this situation should have the following structure:

The following clues need to be obeyed while placing the other seven missing values in

the above grid:

(i) J is not advertised during a given week unless H is advertised during the immediately preceding week. Note: This means that there would be two consecutive weeks somewhere during the 4 weeks where the H-J combination would necessarily be used.

(ii) The product that is advertised twice is advertised during week 4 but is not advertised during week 3.

(iii) G is not advertised during a given week unless either J or O is also advertised that week.

(iv) K is advertised during one of the first two weeks.

(v) O is one of the products advertised during week 3.

From this point we need to move into the questions and solve each question independently.

9. Option (a) would look as below:

This situation contradicts the condition (i) above and hence is rejected. Option (b) would Iookas follows:

It can be checked that the above placement satisfies each of the conditions mentioned above.

Options (c), (d) and (e) can be seen to be rejected because of the following

reasons: Option (c) contradicts condition (iii), i.e. G is not advertised unless either J or O is advertised in the same week;

Option (d) contradicts condition (iv), i.e. K is advertised in the first two weeks;

Option (e) contradicts condition (i)—J has to have H in the immediately preceding week.

Hence, option (b) is correct.

10. If L is advertised twice, it means that L would be necessarily placed in week 4. The grid would look something like below:

Now if we use our interpretation of H-J has to be on consecutive weeks in the above grid, it means that H-J can come on weeks 1 & 2 OR on weeks 2 & 3 OR on weeks 3 & 4. Exploring this thought further we get the following possibilities:

Possibility 1: H-J on week 1 and 2:

Possibility 2: H-J on week 2 and 3:

Not possible since there is no place for G in the above grid (as G has to be with either J or O according to condition (iii)).

Possibility 3: H-J on weeks 3 and 4:

Not possible since there is no place for G in the above grid (as G has to be with either J or O according to condition (iii)).

Thus, we can see that L necessarily has to have M in the same week.

Option (e) is the correct answer.

11. In this case we have to assume that the particular product is advertised only once otherwise the question does not make any sense since if we allow two advertising weeks for most products we would be able to see that they can be advertised in any of the four weeks (except perhaps product O which cannot be advertised in two weeks since it is advertised in week 3).

Once we make this assumption, we get the following thought:

H cannot be advertised in week 4 (as J has to follow H);

J cannot be advertised in week 1 (as H has to be advertised before J);

K has to be advertised in one of the first two weeks, so we cannot take it to weeks 3 and 4;

O has to be advertised in week 3, hence cannot be feasibly advertised in any of the four weeks.

From amongst the options it only leaves us with L which can be advertised in any of the four weeks.

Hence, Option (d) is correct.

12. Checking the options: Option (a) is rejected as G has to have J or O with it;

Option (b) is also rejected as J follows H;

Option (d) puts K in the third week—which contradicts that K has to be in the first two weeks;

Option (c) is also rejected as if we put H and O together we get the following grid structure.

This situation means that the product advertised twice must be from G or J. Since, G necessarily needs J or O with it, G cannot be repeated as it entails a repetition of J or O also, thus repeating two products.

This means, that J must be repeated; but J can only follow H, which means that if we repeat J, we would need to repeat H too—something which goes against the conditions in the problem.

Hence, the only feasible option for repetition of a pair of products that can be advertised in a week is the pair of O and M. In this situation, the complete grid would Iookas follows:

Hence, option (e) is correct.

Solutions for Questions 13-17:

In order to solve this question set, you need to look at making a consolidated decision making framework for the application of the rules.

The following Ifameworkwould help you evaluate the options in various questions:

Based on this understanding of the rules we can move into the questions:

13. Checking each of the options the correct answer can be arrived at as follows:

Option (a):

We can see that this sentence is invalid because the fifth word in the sentence has 4 letters—according to the question we know that every word in the sentence should have at least 5 letters.

Option (b)

Option (c) can be directly rejected because from the first word to the second the sentence starts with:

Doteam-goleam which shows a replacement of 2 letters which is against the rules.

Similarly option (d) is also ruled out as a valid statement, as in the string of words given by reted-seted-seteg the same rule is used twice consecutively (i.e. the rule of replacement).

Option (e) does not give us a valid statement too because the sentence contained in option (e) has four words starting with F.

Hence, option (b) is correct.

14. There is no constraint that restricts the starting letter of the sentence’s first word. Hence, the last possible letter for the first word’s beginning letter is ‘z’. Option (e) is correct.

15. We need to see which word can get changed to ‘licit’ in one operation.

From the options, we can see that if ‘Elicit’ is the third word, we can get ‘licit’ as the fourth word by using the rule of deletion.

Option (e) is correct.

16. What can be noticed in moving from ‘clean’ to ‘learn’ is that the number of letters is same. Also, there is a deletion of 1 letter and addition of 1 letter between clean and learn.

The following movements are possible from clean to learn: clean √E lean√E learn (so learn can be the third word); clean √E tlean√E lean√E learn (so learn can be the fourth word) clean √E tlean√E tlearn√E mlearn√E learn (so Iearncanbe the fifth word); In the above moves, we have used: 1 addition and 1 deletion in the first case;

1 replacement, 1 addition and 1 deletion in the second case;

2 replacements, 1 addition and 1 deletion in the third case;

If we want to make learn as the 6th word that means we need 5 operations from clean to learn. In order to do this we need to try to think of one of two ways:

(i) 3 replacements and 1 deletion and 1 addition

(ii) 2 deletions, 2 additions and 1 replacement (note since the number of letters in clean is equal to the number of letters in learn, the number of deletions we use should be equal to the number of additions)

The first of the above ways means we have to use a sequence of either: Replacement - addition - replacement - deletion- replacement OR Replacement - deletion - replacement - addition - replacement The required result can be achieved through the following string: Clean √E tlean√E tleahn√E cleahn√E Ieahn /E learn

And we can see clearly that we have used the sequence of operations: Replacement - addition - replacement - deletion - replacement to get learn as the sixth word in the sentence.

The following alternative also exists in this case:

Clean √E lean√E tlean√E mlean√E mlearn /E earn

Here we have used: Deletion - addition - replacement - addition - deletion.

Thus, we see that learn can be the sixth word too.

Hence, option (e) is the correct answer.

17. We can follow the following sequence to get the maximum number of letters in the fifth word:

1st word = 5 letters; followed by addition √E 2nd word = 6 letters; followed by replacement √^zE 3rd word = 6 letters; followed by addition √E 4th word = 7 letters; followed by replacement √^zE 5th word = 7 letters.

We can also see that there is no way to exceed 7 letters in this case, as we cannot fit in an additional addition operation till the 5th word.

Hence, option (d) is the correct answer.

Solutions for Questions 18-21:

She performs four different activities - Lecturing, conducting quizzes, evaluating quizzes and working on consultancy projects. Each working day she performs exactly one activity in the morning and exactly one activity in the afternoon. During each week her work schedule MUST satisfy the following restrictions:

She conducts quizzes on exactly three mornings.

She lectures in the afternoon on exactly two consecutive calendar days.

She evaluates quizzes on exactly one morning and three afternoons.

She works on consultancy project on exactly one morning.

On Saturday, she neither lectures nor conducts quizzes.

The following grid structure would be ideal to encapsulate all the information in the question. In the grid below there are a total of 10 slots (5 morning and 5 afternoon).

After reading the information in the clues provided in the question we realize that for the five mornings we have the following clues:

She conducts quizzes on 3 mornings (leaving 2 more mornings) ;

She evaluates quizzes on one morning (leaving 1 more morning) ;

She works on consultancy on exactly one morning—thus all our 5 mornings are accounted for.

Similarly for the five afternoons we have:

Lectures on two consecutive afternoons (leaving 3 more afternoons free);

Evaluates quizzes on three afternoons - thus all the 5 afternoons are accounted for.

Also since she neither lectures not conducts quizzes on Saturday we can make the following conclusions about Saturday:

Afternoon has to be spent Evaluating quizzes; Morning can be spent either Consulting or in Evaluating quizzes.

Also, in the grid below we have indicated that there are three C’s (Conducting quizzes in the mornings); One E (Evaluating quizzes in mornings) and One Con (Consultancy assignment in the morning).

Also, for the afternoons we have two L’s (Lectures) and three E’s (Evaluating quizzes)

Fromthe clue that says: ‘If she conducts quizzes on Monday, she does not conduct a quiz on Tuesday’ and applying the same to the above situation we get that she could be conducting quizzes on either Monday, Wednesday and Fridays or on Tuesday, Wednesday and Fridays. This gives us the following possibilities:

Possibility 1:

Saturday Consuftancy/ Evaluates quizzes Evaluates quizzes

Possibility 2:

For each of the above possibilities there would be further two possibilities depending on where we place the Lectures and the Evaluating Quizzes from Monday to Friday afternoons. Since the two lectures have to be on consecutive calendar days, the lectures can happen on any of: Monday-Tuesday OR Tuesday-Wednesday.

Based on this understanding we can move into the questions of the set:

18. The question is asking about what can be true about Wednesday. Looking at both the possibilities we have created we can clearly see that on Wednesday morning she is necessarily conducting quizzes, while on Wednesday afternoons she could be either lecturing or evaluating quizzes.

Option (c) is the correct answer.

19. The question is asking us about which of the options must be true; thus we are looking for a situation which we cannot avoid in any possibility.

Checking each of the options we see that:

Option (a): There is one day on which she evaluates quizzes both in the morning and in the afternoon—is not necessarily true as this is a possibility but not necessarily true.

Option (b): She works on the consultancy project on one of the days on which lectures. Again this can happen but is not necessary if we place Consultancy on Saturday along with evaluating quizzes.

Option (c): She works on consultancy project on one of the days on which she evaluates quizzes—is also not necessary because we can place Consultancy on Monday morning and match it with Lecturing on Monday afternoon.

Option (d): She lectures on one of the days on which evaluates quizzes. Again

this can happen but is not necessary.

Option (e): She lectures on one of the days on which she conducts quizzes. This is something that must be true since we have to place two consecutive lectures in the afternoons between the first four days and we cannot avoid having at least one of the lectures on a day on which she is conducting quizzes in the morning.

Hence, option (e) is the correct answer.

20. This question is again asking about what ‘could be’ the schedule for evaluating quizzes. We know that she evaluates quizzes on one morning and three afternoons.

If she is conducting quizzes on Tuesdays it means that the possibility grid would look as follows:

From the above it is definite that she definitely evaluates quizzes on Saturday afternoons.

Her possible schedule about Evaluating quizzes would depend on the following variables:

(i) Whether she evaluates quizzes on Monday or Saturday morning.

(ii) On the two consecutive days we choose for the afternoon lectures, and for instance if we choose Monday and Tuesday for lectures, evaluating quizzes would happen in the afternoons on Wednesday and Friday;

If we choose Tuesday and Wednesday for lectures, evaluating quizzes would happen in the afternoons on Monday and Friday;

Matching the options with these possibilities we see that evaluating quizzes cannot happen on the schedules mentioned in options (a) [because it does not have Saturday afternoon]; option (b) [because it gives us evaluating quizzes on two mornings which contradicts the given conditions]; option (c) [because it shows that she is evaluating quizzes on Monday afternoon, Wednesday afternoon and Saturday afternoon, and that leaves on Tuesday and Friday afternoon for the two lectures. We cannot place the lectures on these two afternoons as it contradicts the Conditionthat lectures occur on two consecutive afternoons.]; Option (d) [because Wednesday morning is fixed for conducting quizzes]; Option (e) is a possibility because in that case we get the following grid which is a distinct possibility as it does not contradict any of the clues.

Hence, option (e) is the correct answer

21. Since she lectures on two consecutive calendar days, she can do so either on Monday and Tuesday afternoons OR on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. In either case, Tuesday afternoon is fixed for a lecture. Hence, option (b) is the correct answer.

22. The grid in this question would look as follows:

Fromthe above situation, since we know that Bannerji works in an office, hence he is either the accountant or lawyer. Also, since Chatterji does not know Bannerji and the accountant takes care of Chatterj ³ ^,s account, it follows that Bannerji cannot be the accountant and he must be the lawyer. Thus, Pestonji is the accountant and Mukherji the doctor. The final grid would look as follows:

Surnames

Profession

Bannerji Lawyer

Option (d) is correct.

Solutions for Questions 23 and 24:

The only solution, which satisfies the given conditions is:

23. We require 3 interchanges in order to get to the final situation with 156 in the middle cell.

Option (d) is correct.

24. The digits in set A and E would be 2 and 4 respectively. Option (a) is correct.

Solutions for Questions 25-28:

25. The question asks for the most ethical option for the company. The obvious answer for the same is option (a) as apologizing and fixing the bug even if it has to incur losses would ensure that the losses of the customers are minimised. Options (b), (c) and (d) are not ethical, while option (e) is not as good as option (a) since apologizing to customers would not take care of their inconveniences. Hence, option (a) is the correct answer.

26. It is evident that the company is missing out on 80% of the market size and hence, there is a potential of making the sales go up to 5 times the current sales value. This can be done in two ways suggested under options (a) and (b)—if it sells the same products at lower prices to middle and poor classes OR if it Sells its products under different brand names to the middle and poor classes. The second strategy is better since it safeguards the current business interests of the company and at the same time gives them a strong business growth possibility. This strategy is likely to work and is warranted since the sales growth is stagnating in the rich classes.

Hence, option (b) is correct.

27. As a conscientious female entrepreneur, her first objective is to ensure the well being of her business. If there are certain jobs that are not suited to women employees, and due to that she is forced to reduce the number of her female staff, then she is not showing a lack of conscience in doing so. Especially since the circumstances defined in the question talk about her having expanded to 8 cities it is likely that her business would involve the employees need to travel more and more.

Hence, option (b) is the strongest answer.

Option (c) is not warranted as she has to do something to tackle the business situation and maintaining the status quo would definitely not be good for her business.

Similarly, options (d) and (e) are too drastic and hence are totally uncalled for. Option (a) is something she must have already explored and found infeasible, otherwise she would not have been facing the pressure if something like that were implementable in her business situation.

Option (b) is the correct answer.

28. Option (e) is the best course of action in the given situation as hiring him for what he is good at makes sense along with providing training in other areas in which he is not good at, so that it gives him a chance to improve his basic skills.

Solutions for Questions 29-31:

The situation defined in the problem clearly states that for playing against weaker opposition, the strategy has to be risk averse—where you depend on players who you know would deliver close to their average, while for playing against stronger opposition you need to be risk taking in your decision making—by opting for players who would represent a higher risk but win you matches by their performance on the day. A quick scan through the players and their profiles shows for instance that someone like RD is a safe performer as he delivers close to his average 70% of the time, and though he does not do anything spectacular (as borne out by 3 centuries in 100 matches), he is what can be called a dependable player.

Someone like RU or VS on the other hand, represent high risk players with their century rate being high, but at the same time their rate of failure is also very high. VS, for instance, fails 50% of the time. RU fails 55% of the time. However, this is offset by their returns when they succeed as shown by 15% and 12% rate of scoring a century for them.

Based on this understanding we can move to the questions in the set.

29. Team B is a team which is more or less of the same strength as TeamA. Hence, the team A should choose dependable players as the risk required to maximize the winning chances is low.

If we look at the options in the question what can be definitely rejected is any selection involving RU, since RU would not be a wise choice in this match against B. Hence, options (a), (b) and (e) are rejected. Similarly, in option (d) the player VS is getting selected and he is also a high risk player. Thus, this is also not the appropriate selection.

Option (c): Selection of RD, ST, SG, MD and MK represent the best set of players who are likely to perform close to their average with the least chance of failure. Hence, option (c) is the correct answer.

30. In a match against the strongest team C, we need to take risks with our selection. RD should definitely not be there in the team as he is a low risk choice. Options

(a) and (c) get rejected as they include RD in the choice.

Also, both VS and RU should be part of the team as they represent the highest risk and high returns, if the risk pays off (as they have the highest rates of hitting centuries amongst the players). All the remaining options include both VS and RU in the team. If we compare options (d) and (e) we see that in option (e), ST and SG replace YS and MK from option (d). If we look at the statistics of ST and SG in comparison with YS and MK, it is obvious that even in a high risk situation ST and SG are a better choice (as their century conversion rates are equal, but at the same time their reliability is also higher). So the extra risk in YS and MK is not justified as it does not yield any better returns than ST and SG.

Hence, option (e) is the correct answer.

31. In a match against a weak opposition, we need to be risk averse and choose reliabe players.

ST, SG, RD, MD and W is the most risk averse choice as they perform close to their average the maximum number of times (per 100 matches).

Hence, option (d) is the correct answer.

Solutions for Questions 32-37:

32. From what is given in the caselet, it is evident that option (a) can be inferred. The premise that the involvement of the company’s president in wage problems of employees would lead to a better goodwill towards the management among the workers. This is clearly inferable from the third sentence in the second paragraph of the passage which states: “However, Mr. Thakur felt that by dealing directly with individuals, he could portray the management’s concern for

the employees.”.

Each of the other options can be easily rejected based on an understanding of the central theme of the situation.

Hence, option (a) is correct.

33. Ram Lal’s grievance is brought about in the last two paragraphs of the passage. A close reading of this should make you realise that Ram Lal’s principal grievance was due to the fact that since he was in the night shift, he did not get a chance to interact with the management regarding his wage fixation and his problems.

Option (b) is the correct answer.

34. The causal factor is clearly the inconsistent approach of Mr.Thakur where he is not consistent towards giving time to each of the supervisors in the company. It is this inconsistent approach of Mr. Thakur that has led to Ram LaTs grievance and the subsequent escalation of the episode to an ugly one.

Option (d) is the correct answer.

35. The best option is in the second intervention, i.e. creating a process for supervisors working in the night shift so that they could have an opportunity to interact with him. This would have solved the issue from the root and would in fact not allowed the issue to have cropped up at all.

The intervention in 3, is the next best one as it would have given Ram Lal an opportunity to meet Mr. Thakur without facing the red tapism of his secretary. Consequently, Ram LaTs grievances would have been heard and it would not have allowed the situation to escalate.

The only option which starts with interventions 2 and 3, is option (e).

Hence, option (e) is the correct answer.

36. Lrom the given options, it is clear that there is a valid reason for the production department to feel aggrieved as Mr. Thakur has not consulted them regarding the behavior of the supervisors on the shop floor. Similarly, the Finance department is also affected as suggested in point number 2, while the Personnel department would definitely feel aggrieved and hence disgruntled as Mr. Thakur has ignored and even bypassed them in fixing wages of supervisors directly.

Hence, 1+2+5 represents the correct set of departments which have the most justified reasons for feeling disgruntled.

Hence, option (d) is the correct answer.

37. Mr. Thakur, clearly lacks emotional stability under pressure, as is borne out from his reaction to Ram LaTs action. As a president of the company he is supposed to behave in a more refined and stable manner and not be hitting employees’ no matter what the provocation is.

Hence, option (e) is the correct answer.

38. The argument argues for paying equally to all CEOs and link pay to performance rather than whether the organization they lead is big or small. In order to refute the argument we need to argue that CEOs of big companies are justified in getting paid more.

The best argument from amongst the options is from option (b) which states that ‘managing a big organisation is more challenging than managing small organization.’ If this argument were to be true, it would oppose the argument of the author effectively.

The other options given can be rejected based on the following thinking: Option (a) is actually supporting the argument of the author and not refuting it. Option (c) does not refute the argument because it might be that the CEO who is traveling more might be the CEO of a small organisation.

Option (d) is too vague as an argument, because small companies to become big, typically take years and decades; and even if the CEO of a small company performs well his company might not become big during his reign as the CEO. Hence, this argument is not very effective.

Option (e) also does refute the author’s argument as linking pay to qualification does not necessarily guarantee that the CEO of large companies would be paid more.

Hence, option (b) is the correct answer.

39. In order to strengthen the argument of the speaker we need to show that his argument of paying CEOs of all organisations equally is a valid and strong argument. Option (c) is rejected since if CEOs of big organisations were difficult to hire, it directly means that they should in fact be paid more than CEOs of small organisations. This ends up weakening the author’s argument. Option (b) is irrelevant to the validity or strength of the argument and hence can be rejected as something that would strengthen the author’s argument. Option (d) is again mostly irrelevant to the argument’s strength since if big organisations did indeed contribute more towards moral development of society—it is a non­economic logic and should not have any bearing on their pay. Option (e) if true weakens the argument, since it can be reasoned that if it were true that CEOs of big organisations took much longer to reach the top, as compared to their counterparts in small organisations, it means that they should be paid more. Hence it can be seen to weaken the argument.

Only option (a) in some ways helps the argument that all CEOs should be paid equally, since if it were true that CEOs of small organisations came from good educational background, there is a logic for paying them more and this extra payment should balance out the higher payment that CEOs of big organisations get due to the expected complexity of handling big organisations. The result would be to equate payments of CEOs of big organisations and small organisations.

Hence, option (a) is the correct answer.

Note: Although the answer is not a very good answer to the question, it is the best option from amongst the given options if we are looking at what information if true would Strengthenthe author’s argument.

40. In order to weaken the speakers’ argument we can either show that the cost the speaker is talking about is insignificant in the context of the benefits of making Hindi the official language of India OR if we can show that his argument and his subsequent suggestion is impractical to implement.

Looking through the options, you should be able to see that the logic in option

(b), if true [i.e. Hindi is the most difficult language in the world to speak], would make the speakers’ suggestion highly impractical. None of the other options come close to this option in terms of their weakening effect on the speaker’s argument.

Hence, option (b) is the correct answer.

41. The speaker’s argument in the previous question was to make Hindi the official language of India, using the lack of justification for spending tax payers money on printing documents in multiple languages—something which at best was a frivolous logic to base the argument on. The point given in this question, talks about making Hindi the official language of the United Nations, based on the logic that India being the most populous nation on the planet would contribute the maximum amount to the UN, something which at best is a frivolous logic to argue that Hindi should be made the official language of the UN.

Hence, we can see that both the arguments are similar in nature. Note that we cannot say that the argument is an extension of the speaker’s because the two arguments are unrelated to each other, even though they both talk about making Hindi compulsory in different domains.

Hence, option (c) is the correct answer.

42. The argument creates a visual image for the reader/listener to imagine school children crossing the road in front of speeding vehicles in the absence of speed breakers near their school. This is clearly an emotive appeal to get the reader/listener interested.

The answer gets confirmed as you can clearly see that there is no analogy used in the argument, no statistical analysis used, no personalisation used and no attack on people who are against speed breakers used in the argument.

Hence, option (b) is the correct answer.

43. The paragraph given in this question is clearly using statistical data. This then leads us to consider options (b) and (e). Between these, option (e) can be rejected because it is not contradicting the speaker’s argument for constructing a speed breaker at the Bistupur-Sakchi corner. Similarly, the other options can also get rejected on the basis of:

Option (a) is rejected since the paragraph is in no way similar to the speaker’s argument (of the previous question);

Option (c) is rejected since there is clearly no use of an analogy in the paragraph;

Option (d) is also rejected because neither is this a conclusion of the speaker’s argument nor is there a use of personalisation.

Hence, option (b) is the correct answer.

44. A summary is the best encapsulation of the idea contained in the original paragraph. Since the question asks us to summarise the paragraph we are looking for the option that conveys to the user the same idea as the original paragraph. The principal argument in the paragraph is that if we look at history in a way different than what we have been doing till date, can produce a transformed knowledge base about science. From amongst the options, option

(c) is the Summarywhich is closest to this logic. Hence, option (c) is the correct answer.

45. The author is most likely to agree with the statement given to us in option (e) because the statement ‘history of science can present multiple interpretations to people regarding the process of scientific developments’ is closest to his own argument, which asks that history should be viewed in a different light from a different angle.

Hence, option (e) is the correct answer.

46. Giving top priority to core competence of production and marketing of tea does not mean that the company already possesses these core competences. This is the thinking that removes option (a) as a possible answer to the question.

Similarly, option (b) can be rejected [the causality drawn between increase in production to enhancing core competence is not implied in the passage];

Option (d) can also be rejected because the cause effect relationship is clearly upside down in option (d). It is likely that modernisation would lead to core competency and not the other way around as stated by this option;

and Option (e) can also be rejected as there is nothing to correlate the net profit of' 5.49 crore to giving top priority to production.

Only option (c) is an implication that can be drawn from the given caselet as it is obviously implied that the company would try to increase core competence in order to further it’s own interests.

Hence, option (c) is the correct answer.

47. The paragraph clearly hints at something that an ‘author’ is reflecting on and then goes on to talk about what the author has said. Thus, this is clearly a review of an article or a book (we don’t know which) on Blue Ocean strategy. Hence, option (c) is the correct answer.