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    All India Mock Test 1 for CAT: 68 Questions with Solutions & Analysis

    Attempt the All India Mock Test 1 for CAT: 68 exam-level questions, detailed solutions and performance analysis. First questions free.

    68 Qs

    Total Questions

    204 Marks

    Total Marks

    98.56 Mins

    Duration

    Section-wise Paper Structure

    Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension

    24 Qs

    35% of total marks

    Quantitative Ability

    22 Qs

    32% of total marks

    Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning

    22 Qs

    32% of total marks

    Free Solved Questions with Step-by-Step Solutions

    Authentic examination problems with detailed derivations and answer keys.

    Question 1
    2021 Slot 3 PYQ
    Level 3: Exam Standard
    Common Description: Instructions [5 - 8]
    The passage below is accompanied by a set of questions. Choose the best answer to each question.
    Today we can hardly conceive of ourselves without an unconscious. Yet between 1700 and 1900, this notion developed as a genuinely original thought. The “unconscious” burst the shell of conventional language, coined as it had been to embody the fleeting ideas and the shifting conceptions of several generations until, finally, it became fixed and defined in specialized terms within the realm of medical psychology and Freudian psychoanalysis.
    The vocabulary concerning the soul and the mind increased enormously in the course of the nineteenth century. The enrichments of literary and intellectual language led to an altered understanding of the meanings that underlie time-honored expressions and traditional catchwords. At the same time, once coined, powerful new ideas attracted to themselves a whole host of seemingly unrelated issues, practices, and experiences, creating a peculiar network of preoccupations that as a group had not existed before. The drawn-out attempt to approach and define the unconscious brought together the spiritualist and the psychical researcher of borderline phenomena (such as apparitions, spectral illusions, haunted houses, mediums, trance, automatic writing); the psychiatrist or alienist probing the nature of mental disease, of abnormal ideation, hallucination, delirium, melancholia, mania; the surgeon performing operations with the aid of hypnotism; the magnetizer claiming to correct the disequilibrium in the universal flow of magnetic fluids but who soon came to be regarded as a clever manipulator of the imagination; the physiologist and the physician who puzzled over sleep, dreams, sleepwalking, anesthesia, the influence of the mind on the body in health and disease; the neurologist concerned with the functions of the brain and the physiological basis of mental life; the philosopher interested in the will, the emotions, consciousness, knowledge, imagination and the creative genius; and, last but not least, the psychologist.
    Significantly, most if not all of these practices (for example, hypnotism in surgery or psychological magnetism) originated in the waning years of the eighteenth century and during the early decades of the nineteenth century, as did some of the disciplines (such as psychology and psychical research). The majority of topics too were either new or assumed hitherto unknown colors. Thus, before 1790, few if any spoke, in medical terms, of the affinity between creative genius and the hallucinations of the insane . . .
    Striving vaguely and independently to give expression to a latent conception, various lines of thought can be brought together by some novel term. The new concept then serves as a kind of resting place or stocktaking in the development of ideas, giving satisfaction and a stimulus for further discussion or speculation. Thus, the massive introduction of the term unconscious by Hartmann in 1869 appeared to focalize many stray thoughts, affording a temporary feeling that a crucial step had been taken forward, a comprehensive knowledge gained, a knowledge that required only further elaboration, explication, and unfolding in order to bring in a bounty of higher understanding. Ultimately, Hartmann’s attempt at defining the unconscious proved fruitless because he extended its reach into every realm of organic and inorganic, spiritual, intellectual, and instinctive existence, severely diluting the precision and compromising the impact of the concept. “The enrichments of literary and intellectual language led to an altered understanding of the meanings that underlie time-honored expressions and traditional catchwords.” Which one of the following interpretations of this sentence would be closest in meaning to the original?
    Question 2
    2022 Slot 3 PYQ
    Level 3: Exam Standard
    Common Description: Instructions [9 - 12]
    The passage below is accompanied by a set of questions. Choose the best answer to each question.
    Nature has all along yielded her flesh to humans. First, we took nature’s materials as food, fibers, and shelter. Then we learned to extract raw materials from her biosphere to create our own new synthetic materials. Now Bios is yielding us her mind—we are taking her logic.
    Clockwork logic—the logic of the machines—will only build simple contraptions. Truly complex systems such as a cell, a meadow, an economy, or a brain (natural or artificial) require a rigorous nontechnological logic. We now see that no logic except bio-logic can assemble a thinking device, or even a workable system of any magnitude.
    It is an astounding discovery that one can extract the logic of Bios out of biology and have something useful. Although many philosophers in the past have suspected one could abstract the laws of life and apply them elsewhere, it wasn’t until the complexity of computers and human-made systems became as complicated as living things, that it was possible to prove this. It’s eerie how much of life can be transferred. So far, some of the traits of the living that have successfully been transported to mechanical systems are: self-replication, self-governance, limited self-repair, mild evolution, and partial learning.
    We have reason to believe yet more can be synthesized and made into something new. Yet at the same time that the logic of Bios is being imported into machines, the logic of Technos is being imported into life. The root of bioengineering is the desire to control the organic long enough to improve it. Domesticated plants and animals are examples of technos-logic applied to life. The wild aromatic root of the Queen Anne’s lace weed has been fine-tuned over generations by selective herb gatherers until it has evolved into a sweet carrot of the garden; the udders of wild bovines have been selectively enlarged in an “unnatural” way to satisfy humans rather than calves. Milk cows and carrots, therefore, are human inventions as much as steam engines and gunpowder are. But milk cows and carrots are more indicative of the kind of inventions humans will make in the future: products that are grown rather than manufactured.
    Genetic engineering is precisely what cattle breeders do when they select better strains of Holsteins, only bioengineers employ more precise and powerful control. While carrot and milk cow breeders had to rely on diffuse organic evolution, modern genetic engineers can use directed artificial evolution—purposeful design—which greatly accelerates improvements.
    The overlap of the mechanical and the lifelike increases year by year. Part of this bionic convergence is a matter of words. The meanings of “mechanical” and “life” are both stretching until all complicated things can be perceived as machines, and all self-sustaining machines can be perceived as alive. Yet beyond semantics, two concrete trends are happening: (1)Human-made things are behaving more lifelike, and (2) Life is becoming more engineered. The apparent veil between the organic and the manufactured has crumpled to reveal that the two really are, and have always been, of one being. Which one of the following sets of words/phrases best serves as keywords to the passage?
    Question 3
    2024 Slot 2 PYQ
    Level 3: Exam Standard
    Common Description: The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
    The job of a peer reviewer is thankless. Collectively, academics spend around 70 million hours every year evaluating each other’s manuscripts on the behalf of scholarly journals — and they usually receive no monetary compensation and little if any recognition for their effort. Some do it as a way to keep abreast with developments in their field; some simply see it as a duty to the discipline. Either way, academic publishing would likely crumble without them.
    In recent years, some scientists have begun posting their reviews online, mainly to claim credit for their work. Sites like Publons allow researchers to either share entire referee reports or simply list the journals for whom they’ve carried out a review…. The rise of Publons suggests that academics are increasingly placing value on the work of peer review and asking others, such as grant funders, to do the same. While that’s vital in the publish-or-perish culture of academia, there’s also immense value in the data underlying peer review. Sharing peer review data could help journals stamp out fraud, inefficiency, and systemic bias in academic publishing….
    Peer review data could also help root out bias. Last year, a study based on peer review data for nearly 24,000 submissions to the biomedical journal eLife found that women and non- Westerners were vastly underrepresented among peer reviewers. Only around one in every five reviewers was female, and less than two percent of reviewers were based in developing countries…. Openly publishing peer review data could perhaps also help journals address another problem in academic publishing: fraudulent peer reviews. For instance, a minority of authors have been known to use phony email addresses to pose as an outside expert and review their own manuscripts.…
    Opponents of open peer review commonly argue that confidentiality is vital to the integrity of the review process; referees may be less critical of manuscripts if their reports are published, especially if they are revealing their identities by signing them. Some also hold concerns that open reviewing may deter referees from agreeing to judge manuscripts in the first place, or that they’ll take longer to do so out of fear of scrutiny….
    Even when the content of reviews and the identity of reviewers can’t be shared publicly, perhaps journals could share the data with outside researchers for study. Or they could release other figures that wouldn’t compromise the anonymity of reviews but that might answer important questions about how long the reviewing process takes, how many researchers editors have to reach out to on average to find one who will carry out the work, and the geographic distribution of peer reviewers.
    Of course, opening up data underlying the reviewing process will not fix peer review entirely, and there may be instances in which there are valid reasons to keep the content of peer reviews hidden and the identity of the referees confidential. But the norm should shift from opacity in all cases to opacity only when necessary. According to the passage, some are opposed to making peer reviews public for all the following reasons EXCEPT that it
    Question 4
    2023 Slot 1 PYQ
    Level 3: Exam Standard

    A mixture P is formed by removing a certain amount of coffee from a coffee jar and replacing the same amount with cocoa powder. The same amount is again removed from mixture P and replaced with same amount of cocoa powder to form a new mixture Q. If the ratio of coffee and cocoa in the mixture Q is 16 : 9, then the ratio of cocoa in mixture P to that in mixture Q is

    Question 5
    2024 Slot 3 PYQ
    Level 3: Exam Standard

    A train travelled a certain distance at a uniform speed. Had the speed been 6 km per hour more, it would have needed 4 hours less. Had the speed been 6 km per hour less, it would have needed 6 hours more. The distance, in km, travelled by the train is

    Question 6
    2022 Slot 2 PYQ
    Level 3: Exam Standard

    There are two containers of the same volume, first container half-filled with sugar syrup and the second container half-filled with milk. Half the content of the first container is transferred to the second container, and then the half of this mixture is transferred back to the first container. Next, half the content of the first container is transferred back to the second container. Then the ratio of sugar syrup and milk in the second container is

    Question 7
    2025-1 PYQ
    Level 3: Exam Standard
    Common Description: At InnovateX, six employees, Asha, Bunty, Chintu, Dolly, Eklavya, and Falguni, were split into two groups of three each: Elite led by Manager Kuku, and Novice led by Manager Lalu.
    At the end of each quarter, Kuku and Lalu handed out ratings to all members in their respective groups. In each group, each employee received a distinct integer rating from 1 to 3.
    The score for an employee at the end of a quarter is defined as their cumulative rating from the beginning of the year. At the end of each quarter the employee in Novice with the highest score was promoted to Elite, and the employee in Elite with the minimum score was demoted to Novice. If there was a tie in scores, the employee with a higher rating in the latest quarter was ranked higher.
    1. Asha, Bunty, and Chintu were in Elite at the beginning of Quarter 1. All of them were in Novice at the beginning of Quarter 4.
    2. Dolly and Falguni were the only employees who got the same rating across all the quarters.
    3. The following is known about ratings given by Lalu:
    • Bunty received a rating of 1 in Quarter 2.
    • Asha and Dolly received ratings of 1 and 2, respectively, in Quarter 3. What was Bunty’s score at the end of Quarter 3?
    Question 8
    2021 Slot 2 PYQ
    Level 4: Challenger
    Common Description: Instructions [29 - 34]
    Ten objects o1, o2, …, o10 were distributed among Amar, Barat, Charles, Disha, and Elise. Each item went to exactly one person. Each person got exactly two of the items, and this pair of objects is called her/his bundle.
    The following table shows how each person values each object.
    o1o2o3o4o5o6o7o8o9o10
    Amar4993738795
    Barat59755368108
    Charles8883645896
    Disha8885536498
    Elise68956563710
    The value of any bundle by a person is the sum of that person’s values of the objects in that bundle. A person X envies another person Y if X values Y’s bundle more than X’s own bundle.
    For example, hypothetically suppose Amar’s bundle consists of o1 and o2, and Barat’s bundle consists of o3 and o4. Then Amar values his own bundle at 4 + 9 = 13 and Barat’s bundle at 9 + 3 = 12. Hence Amar does not envy Barat. On the other hand, Barat values his own bundle at 7 + 5 = 12 and Amar’s bundle at 5 + 9 = 14. Hence Barat envies Amar.
    The following facts are known about the actual distribution of the objects among the five people.
    1. If someone’s value for an object is 10, then she/he received that object.
    2. Objects o1, o2, and o3 were given to three different people.
    3. Objects o1 and o8 were given to different people.
    4. Three people value their own bundles at 16. No one values her/his own bundle at a number higher than 16.
    5. Disha values her own bundle at an odd number. All others value their own bundles at an even number.
    6. Some people who value their own bundles less than 16 envy some other people who value their own bundle at 16. No one else envies others. What is Amar’s value for his own bundle?
    Question 9
    2022 Slot 3 PYQ
    Level 3: Exam Standard
    Common Description: Instructions [35 - 39]
    All the first-year students in the computer science (CS) department in a university take both the courses (i) AI and (ii) ML. Students from other departments (non-CS students) can also take one of these two courses, but not both. Students who fail in a course get an F grade; others pass and are awarded A or B or C grades depending on their performance. The following are some additional facts about the number of students who took these two courses this year and the grades they obtained.
    1. The numbers of non-CS students who took AI and ML were in the ratio 2 : 5.
    2. The number of non-CS students who took either AI or ML was equal to the number of CS students.
    3. The numbers of non-CS students who failed in the two courses were the same and their total is equal to the number of CS students who got a C grade in ML.
    4. In both the courses, 50% of the students who passed got a B grade. But, while the numbers of students who got A and C grades were the same for AI, they were in the ratio 3 : 2 for ML.
    5. No CS student failed in AI, while no non-CS student got an A grade in AI.
    6. The numbers of CS students who got A, B and C grades respectively in AI were in the ratio 3 : 5 : 2, while in ML the ratio was 4 : 5 : 2.
    7. The ratio of the total number of non-CS students failing in one of the two courses to the number of CS students failing in one of the two courses was 3 : 1.
    8. 30 students failed in ML. How many students got A grade in AI?

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    All India Mock Test 1 for CAT: 68 Questions with Solutions & Analysis

    Attempt the All India Mock Test 1 for CAT: 68 exam-level questions, detailed solutions and performance analysis. First questions free.

    Paper breakdown

    68 questions · 204 marks · 98.56 minutes. Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension: 24 · Quantitative Ability: 22 · Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning: 22

    Free sample questions from All India Mock Test 1

    Question 1 · Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension · 2021 Slot 3 MCQ
    Common Description: Instructions [5 - 8]
    The passage below is accompanied by a set of questions. Choose the best answer to each question.
    Today we can hardly conceive of ourselves without an unconscious. Yet between 1700 and 1900, this notion developed as a genuinely original thought. The “unconscious” burst the shell of conventional language, coined as it had been to embody the fleeting ideas and the shifting conceptions of several generations until, finally, it became fixed and defined in specialized terms within the realm of medical psychology and Freudian psychoanalysis.
    The vocabulary concerning the soul and the mind increased enormously in the course of the nineteenth century. The enrichments of literary and intellectual language led to an altered understanding of the meanings that underlie time-honored expressions and traditional catchwords. At the same time, once coined, powerful new ideas attracted to themselves a whole host of seemingly unrelated issues, practices, and experiences, creating a peculiar network of preoccupations that as a group had not existed before. The drawn-out attempt to approach and define the unconscious brought together the spiritualist and the psychical researcher of borderline phenomena (such as apparitions, spectral illusions, haunted houses, mediums, trance, automatic writing); the psychiatrist or alienist probing the nature of mental disease, of abnormal ideation, hallucination, delirium, melancholia, mania; the surgeon performing operations with the aid of hypnotism; the magnetizer claiming to correct the disequilibrium in the universal flow of magnetic fluids but who soon came to be regarded as a clever manipulator of the imagination; the physiologist and the physician who puzzled over sleep, dreams, sleepwalking, anesthesia, the influence of the mind on the body in health and disease; the neurologist concerned with the functions of the brain and the physiological basis of mental life; the philosopher interested in the will, the emotions, consciousness, knowledge, imagination and the creative genius; and, last but not least, the psychologist.
    Significantly, most if not all of these practices (for example, hypnotism in surgery or psychological magnetism) originated in the waning years of the eighteenth century and during the early decades of the nineteenth century, as did some of the disciplines (such as psychology and psychical research). The majority of topics too were either new or assumed hitherto unknown colors. Thus, before 1790, few if any spoke, in medical terms, of the affinity between creative genius and the hallucinations of the insane . . .
    Striving vaguely and independently to give expression to a latent conception, various lines of thought can be brought together by some novel term. The new concept then serves as a kind of resting place or stocktaking in the development of ideas, giving satisfaction and a stimulus for further discussion or speculation. Thus, the massive introduction of the term unconscious by Hartmann in 1869 appeared to focalize many stray thoughts, affording a temporary feeling that a crucial step had been taken forward, a comprehensive knowledge gained, a knowledge that required only further elaboration, explication, and unfolding in order to bring in a bounty of higher understanding. Ultimately, Hartmann’s attempt at defining the unconscious proved fruitless because he extended its reach into every realm of organic and inorganic, spiritual, intellectual, and instinctive existence, severely diluting the precision and compromising the impact of the concept. “The enrichments of literary and intellectual language led to an altered understanding of the meanings that underlie time-honored expressions and traditional catchwords.” Which one of the following interpretations of this sentence would be closest in meaning to the original?
    1. A.

      All of the options listed here.

    2. B.

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

    3. C.

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

    4. D.

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

    Correct Answer:

    D

    Step-by-Step Solution

    Key idea: This is a sentence-interpretation question, recognisable because it asks which interpretation is "closest in meaning to the original" for a specific quoted sentence.

    Why it applies: Paraphrase questions test your ability to preserve the exact causal direction and subject-object relationships of the original sentence without distorting them.

    Step 1: Isolate the target sentence. "The enrichments of literary and intellectual language led to an altered understanding of the meanings that underlie time-honored expressions and traditional catchwords."

    Step 2: Identify the causal structure. CAUSE: "The enrichments of literary and intellectual language" (innovations in language). EFFECT: "an altered understanding of the meanings that underlie time-honored expressions" (meanings of old expressions changed).

    Step 3: Identify the direction. Literary/intellectual language changes FIRST, and this causes the meanings of time-honored expressions to change SECOND.

    Step 4: Evaluate Option B. "Time-honored expressions... were enriched by literary... language." This reverses the subject and object, suggesting the expressions themselves were enriched, rather than our understanding of their meanings being altered. Incorrect.

    Step 5: Evaluate Option C. "Literary... language was altered by time-honored expressions..." This completely reverses the cause and effect. Incorrect.

    Step 6: Evaluate Option D. "The meanings of time-honored expressions were changed by innovations in literary and intellectual language." This correctly preserves the causal direction and the specific elements affected.

    Answer: Option D

    Question 2 · Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension · 2022 Slot 3 MCQ
    Common Description: Instructions [9 - 12]
    The passage below is accompanied by a set of questions. Choose the best answer to each question.
    Nature has all along yielded her flesh to humans. First, we took nature’s materials as food, fibers, and shelter. Then we learned to extract raw materials from her biosphere to create our own new synthetic materials. Now Bios is yielding us her mind—we are taking her logic.
    Clockwork logic—the logic of the machines—will only build simple contraptions. Truly complex systems such as a cell, a meadow, an economy, or a brain (natural or artificial) require a rigorous nontechnological logic. We now see that no logic except bio-logic can assemble a thinking device, or even a workable system of any magnitude.
    It is an astounding discovery that one can extract the logic of Bios out of biology and have something useful. Although many philosophers in the past have suspected one could abstract the laws of life and apply them elsewhere, it wasn’t until the complexity of computers and human-made systems became as complicated as living things, that it was possible to prove this. It’s eerie how much of life can be transferred. So far, some of the traits of the living that have successfully been transported to mechanical systems are: self-replication, self-governance, limited self-repair, mild evolution, and partial learning.
    We have reason to believe yet more can be synthesized and made into something new. Yet at the same time that the logic of Bios is being imported into machines, the logic of Technos is being imported into life. The root of bioengineering is the desire to control the organic long enough to improve it. Domesticated plants and animals are examples of technos-logic applied to life. The wild aromatic root of the Queen Anne’s lace weed has been fine-tuned over generations by selective herb gatherers until it has evolved into a sweet carrot of the garden; the udders of wild bovines have been selectively enlarged in an “unnatural” way to satisfy humans rather than calves. Milk cows and carrots, therefore, are human inventions as much as steam engines and gunpowder are. But milk cows and carrots are more indicative of the kind of inventions humans will make in the future: products that are grown rather than manufactured.
    Genetic engineering is precisely what cattle breeders do when they select better strains of Holsteins, only bioengineers employ more precise and powerful control. While carrot and milk cow breeders had to rely on diffuse organic evolution, modern genetic engineers can use directed artificial evolution—purposeful design—which greatly accelerates improvements.
    The overlap of the mechanical and the lifelike increases year by year. Part of this bionic convergence is a matter of words. The meanings of “mechanical” and “life” are both stretching until all complicated things can be perceived as machines, and all self-sustaining machines can be perceived as alive. Yet beyond semantics, two concrete trends are happening: (1)Human-made things are behaving more lifelike, and (2) Life is becoming more engineered. The apparent veil between the organic and the manufactured has crumpled to reveal that the two really are, and have always been, of one being. Which one of the following sets of words/phrases best serves as keywords to the passage?
    1. A.

      Complex systems; Carrots; Milk cows; Convergence; Technos-logic

    2. B.

      Nature; Computers; Carrots; Milk cows; Genetic engineering

    3. C.

      Nature; Bios; Technos; Self-repair; Holsteins

    4. D.

      Complex systems; Bio-logic; Bioengineering; Technos-logic; Convergence

    Correct Answer:

    D

    Step-by-Step Solution

    Key idea: This is a Macro Structure / Keywords question. We need words that capture the abstract themes of the passage, not just specific examples.

    Step 1: Identify the abstract themes of the passage. The passage discusses the extraction of "bio-logic" from nature, the application of "technos-logic" to life (bioengineering), and the "convergence" of these two in "complex systems".

    Step 2: Evaluate Option A. "Carrots" and "Milk cows" are specific examples used to illustrate technos-logic, not abstract keywords for the whole passage.

    Step 3: Evaluate Option B. "Computers", "Carrots", and "Milk cows" are too specific and miss the overarching theme of convergence and bio-logic.

    Step 4: Evaluate Option C. "Holsteins" is a specific breed of cattle, which is far too narrow to serve as a keyword for the entire passage.

    Step 5: Evaluate Option D. "Complex systems", "Bio-logic", "Bioengineering", "Technos-logic", and "Convergence" are the exact abstract terms used by the author to build the core argument.

    Answer: Option D.

    Question 3 · Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension · 2024 Slot 2 MCQ
    Common Description: The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
    The job of a peer reviewer is thankless. Collectively, academics spend around 70 million hours every year evaluating each other’s manuscripts on the behalf of scholarly journals — and they usually receive no monetary compensation and little if any recognition for their effort. Some do it as a way to keep abreast with developments in their field; some simply see it as a duty to the discipline. Either way, academic publishing would likely crumble without them.
    In recent years, some scientists have begun posting their reviews online, mainly to claim credit for their work. Sites like Publons allow researchers to either share entire referee reports or simply list the journals for whom they’ve carried out a review…. The rise of Publons suggests that academics are increasingly placing value on the work of peer review and asking others, such as grant funders, to do the same. While that’s vital in the publish-or-perish culture of academia, there’s also immense value in the data underlying peer review. Sharing peer review data could help journals stamp out fraud, inefficiency, and systemic bias in academic publishing….
    Peer review data could also help root out bias. Last year, a study based on peer review data for nearly 24,000 submissions to the biomedical journal eLife found that women and non- Westerners were vastly underrepresented among peer reviewers. Only around one in every five reviewers was female, and less than two percent of reviewers were based in developing countries…. Openly publishing peer review data could perhaps also help journals address another problem in academic publishing: fraudulent peer reviews. For instance, a minority of authors have been known to use phony email addresses to pose as an outside expert and review their own manuscripts.…
    Opponents of open peer review commonly argue that confidentiality is vital to the integrity of the review process; referees may be less critical of manuscripts if their reports are published, especially if they are revealing their identities by signing them. Some also hold concerns that open reviewing may deter referees from agreeing to judge manuscripts in the first place, or that they’ll take longer to do so out of fear of scrutiny….
    Even when the content of reviews and the identity of reviewers can’t be shared publicly, perhaps journals could share the data with outside researchers for study. Or they could release other figures that wouldn’t compromise the anonymity of reviews but that might answer important questions about how long the reviewing process takes, how many researchers editors have to reach out to on average to find one who will carry out the work, and the geographic distribution of peer reviewers.
    Of course, opening up data underlying the reviewing process will not fix peer review entirely, and there may be instances in which there are valid reasons to keep the content of peer reviews hidden and the identity of the referees confidential. But the norm should shift from opacity in all cases to opacity only when necessary. According to the passage, some are opposed to making peer reviews public for all the following reasons EXCEPT that it
    1. A.

      makes reviewers reluctant to review manuscripts, especially if these are critical of the submitted work.

    2. B.

      leaves the reviewers unexposed to unwarranted and unjustified criticism or comments from others.

    3. C.

      deters reviewers from producing honest, if critical, reviews that are vital to the sound publishing process.

    4. D.

      delays the manuscript evaluation process as reviewers would take longer to write their reviews.

    Correct Answer:

    B

    Step-by-Step Solution

    Key idea: This is an "EXCEPT" detail question, recognizable by the keyword "EXCEPT" and asking for the option that is NOT a reason provided by opponents in the text.

    Step 1: Locate the opponents' arguments in paragraph 4: "Opponents of open peer review commonly argue that confidentiality is vital... referees may be less critical... open reviewing may deter referees... or that they'll take longer to do so out of fear of scrutiny."

    Step 2: Map the text to the options.

    • Option A (reluctant to review/critical): Matches "deter referees" and "less critical".
    • Option C (deters honest/critical reviews): Matches "less critical of manuscripts if their reports are published".
    • Option D (delays evaluation): Matches "take longer to do so out of fear of scrutiny".

    Step 3: Evaluate Option B. It claims making reviews public "leaves the reviewers unexposed to unwarranted criticism". However, the text says opponents fear "scrutiny". Making reviews public exposes them to scrutiny; it does not leave them unexposed. Thus, B is factually opposite to the opponents' fears and is the correct "EXCEPT" answer.

    Answer: B

    Question 4 · Quantitative Ability · 2023 Slot 1 MCQ

    A mixture P is formed by removing a certain amount of coffee from a coffee jar and replacing the same amount with cocoa powder. The same amount is again removed from mixture P and replaced with same amount of cocoa powder to form a new mixture Q. If the ratio of coffee and cocoa in the mixture Q is 16 : 9, then the ratio of cocoa in mixture P to that in mixture Q is

    1. A.

      1:3

    2. B.

      1:2

    3. C.

      5:9

    4. D.

      4:9

    Correct Answer:

    C

    Step-by-Step Solution

    This is a successive replacement problem — recognisable because the same amount is removed and replaced with a new ingredient twice in a row, and you're asked to compare compositions at two different stages (P and Q).

    Step 1: Set up variables.

    Let the container's total capacity be $1$ unit, and let be the fraction removed each time (same amount removed each time from a fixed-size container means the same fraction each time).

    Step 2: Build mixture P.

    Initially the jar is pure coffee. Removing fraction and replacing with cocoa gives:

    Step 3: Build mixture Q from P.

    Since P is well-mixed, removing fraction of P removes fraction of both its coffee and its cocoa:

    Then adding back fraction of pure cocoa:

    Step 4: Use the given ratio to find .

    Solving this quadratic:

    This gives (rejected, since a fraction removed cannot exceed 1) or .

    Step 5: Compute cocoa in P and cocoa in Q using .

    Step 6: Find the required ratio.

    Answer: .

    Common trap: it's easy to accidentally compute cocoa in P as (as if P had already gone through a removal step) instead of simply — this gives the wrong ratio , which is deliberately included as a wrong option.

    Question 5 · Quantitative Ability · 2024 Slot 3 MCQ

    A train travelled a certain distance at a uniform speed. Had the speed been 6 km per hour more, it would have needed 4 hours less. Had the speed been 6 km per hour less, it would have needed 6 hours more. The distance, in km, travelled by the train is

    1. A.

      720

    2. B.

      800

    3. C.

      780

    4. D.

      640

    Correct Answer:

    A

    Step-by-Step Solution

    Pattern recognition: This is a "speed changed, distance same" problem. The distance travelled never changes — only the speed and the corresponding time change. Whenever a question gives two "what if the speed had been X more/less" statements about the same journey, the trigger is: set up once, then write two equations using the two altered scenarios, and eliminate .

    Why this method: The phrase "had the speed been ... more, it would have needed ... less" and the second similar phrase both describe the same distance under two different speed-time pairs. So stays constant across all three scenarios (original, +6, -6).

    Step 1 — Set up variables.

    Let the original speed be km/h and the original time be hours, so .

    Step 2 — Use condition 1 (speed +6, time −4).

    Expanding:

    Step 3 — Use condition 2 (speed −6, time +6).

    Expanding:

    Step 4 — Solve simultaneously.

    Substitute (ii) into (i):

    So .

    Step 5 — Find distance.

    Check: With : ✓ and ✓. Both conditions match, confirming the distance is 720 km.

    Answer: 720 km (Option A).

    Common trap: Students often forget that cancels out on both sides when expanding, and end up trying to solve for directly without eliminating it first — this leads to one equation in three unknowns and a dead end.

    Question 6 · Quantitative Ability · 2022 Slot 2 MCQ

    There are two containers of the same volume, first container half-filled with sugar syrup and the second container half-filled with milk. Half the content of the first container is transferred to the second container, and then the half of this mixture is transferred back to the first container. Next, half the content of the first container is transferred back to the second container. Then the ratio of sugar syrup and milk in the second container is

    1. A.

      4:5

    2. B.

      6:5

    3. C.

      5:4

    4. D.

      5:6

    Correct Answer:

    D

    Step-by-Step Solution

    Key idea: this is a two-vessel transfer problem. It is recognisable because liquid moves from one container to another, gets mixed, and then part of the mixture moves back. The safe method is a step-by-step ledger of syrup and milk in both containers.

    Step 1: Let each container have capacity .

    Initially:

    Container 1: syrup = , milk = $0$.

    Container 2: syrup = $0$, milk = .

    Step 2: Half of the first container is transferred to the second.

    The first container has total content , all syrup.

    Half of it is syrup.

    After transfer:

    Container 1: syrup = , milk = $0$.

    Container 2: syrup = , milk = .

    Total in Container 2 = .

    Composition of Container 2:

    syrup fraction = ,

    milk fraction = .

    Step 3: Half of the second container’s mixture is transferred back to the first.

    Half of Container 2 = .

    This transferred mixture contains:

    syrup = ,

    milk = .

    Container 2 after giving this away:

    syrup = ,

    milk = .

    Container 1 after receiving this:

    syrup = ,

    milk = .

    Total in Container 1 = .

    Composition of Container 1:

    syrup fraction = ,

    milk fraction = .

    Step 4: Half of the first container is transferred to the second.

    Half of Container 1 = .

    This transferred mixture contains:

    syrup = ,

    milk = .

    Container 2 before this transfer had:

    syrup = ,

    milk = .

    After receiving from Container 1:

    syrup in Container 2 = ,

    milk in Container 2 = .

    Therefore, the ratio of sugar syrup to milk in the second container is:

    .

    Answer: Option D, 5:6.

    Question 7 · Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning · 2025 1 NAT
    Common Description: At InnovateX, six employees, Asha, Bunty, Chintu, Dolly, Eklavya, and Falguni, were split into two groups of three each: Elite led by Manager Kuku, and Novice led by Manager Lalu.
    At the end of each quarter, Kuku and Lalu handed out ratings to all members in their respective groups. In each group, each employee received a distinct integer rating from 1 to 3.
    The score for an employee at the end of a quarter is defined as their cumulative rating from the beginning of the year. At the end of each quarter the employee in Novice with the highest score was promoted to Elite, and the employee in Elite with the minimum score was demoted to Novice. If there was a tie in scores, the employee with a higher rating in the latest quarter was ranked higher.
    1. Asha, Bunty, and Chintu were in Elite at the beginning of Quarter 1. All of them were in Novice at the beginning of Quarter 4.
    2. Dolly and Falguni were the only employees who got the same rating across all the quarters.
    3. The following is known about ratings given by Lalu:
    • Bunty received a rating of 1 in Quarter 2.
    • Asha and Dolly received ratings of 1 and 2, respectively, in Quarter 3. What was Bunty’s score at the end of Quarter 3?
    Correct Answer:

    5

    Step-by-Step Solution

    Key idea: This is a state-tracking problem with cumulative scores and group transitions. We recognise it because employees move between groups based on performance rules, and ratings accumulate over time.

    Step 1: Track Bunty's movement and Q1 rating.

    Bunty starts in Elite. Clue 3 states Lalu (Novice manager) rated him 1 in Q2, so he was demoted at the end of Q1. Demotion goes to the minimum score. Since ratings are distinct , Bunty's Q1 rating = 1. Cumulative score after Q1 = 1.

    Step 2: Calculate cumulative score after Q2.

    Bunty is in Novice in Q2. Given rating = 1. Cumulative score after Q2 = .

    Step 3: Determine Q3 ratings and group.

    Dolly (D) and Falguni (F) have constant ratings. Lalu rated D=2 in Q3, so D=2 always.

    In Q1 Novice , F must have been promoted (to avoid contradictions with D's location). Thus F=3 always, and E=1 in Q1.

    In Q2 Novice , ratings are B=1, D=2. For E to be promoted at the end of Q2, E must tie D's score (4) and win the tie-breaker. So E gets 3 in Q2.

    This leaves Novice Q3 as . Lalu rates A=1, D=2, so Bunty must get 3.

    Step 4: Final calculation.

    Bunty's score at the end of Q3 = 2 (from Q2) + 3 (from Q3) = 5.

    Answer: 5

    Question 8 · Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning · 2021 Slot 2 NAT
    Common Description: Instructions [29 - 34]
    Ten objects o1, o2, …, o10 were distributed among Amar, Barat, Charles, Disha, and Elise. Each item went to exactly one person. Each person got exactly two of the items, and this pair of objects is called her/his bundle.
    The following table shows how each person values each object.
    o1o2o3o4o5o6o7o8o9o10
    Amar4993738795
    Barat59755368108
    Charles8883645896
    Disha8885536498
    Elise68956563710
    The value of any bundle by a person is the sum of that person’s values of the objects in that bundle. A person X envies another person Y if X values Y’s bundle more than X’s own bundle.
    For example, hypothetically suppose Amar’s bundle consists of o1 and o2, and Barat’s bundle consists of o3 and o4. Then Amar values his own bundle at 4 + 9 = 13 and Barat’s bundle at 9 + 3 = 12. Hence Amar does not envy Barat. On the other hand, Barat values his own bundle at 7 + 5 = 12 and Amar’s bundle at 5 + 9 = 14. Hence Barat envies Amar.
    The following facts are known about the actual distribution of the objects among the five people.
    1. If someone’s value for an object is 10, then she/he received that object.
    2. Objects o1, o2, and o3 were given to three different people.
    3. Objects o1 and o8 were given to different people.
    4. Three people value their own bundles at 16. No one values her/his own bundle at a number higher than 16.
    5. Disha values her own bundle at an odd number. All others value their own bundles at an even number.
    6. Some people who value their own bundles less than 16 envy some other people who value their own bundle at 16. No one else envies others. What is Amar’s value for his own bundle?
    Correct Answer:

    12

    Step-by-Step Solution

    Key idea: This is a valuation-envy allocation question. We must deduce the unique distribution of objects to people based on value constraints and envy conditions.

    Step 1: Analyze Value 10 Constraint.

    "If someone’s value for an object is 10, then she/he received that object."

    • Barat values o9 at 10. So Barat gets o9.
    • Elise values o10 at 10. So Elise gets o10.

    Step 2: Analyze Bundle Values.

    Max bundle value is 16. Three people have value 16. Others < 16.

    Disha has an odd bundle value. Others (A, B, C, E) have even bundle values.

    Step 3: Determine Barat's Bundle.

    Barat has o9 (Value 10 for Barat).

    Barat's total must be even (Barat is not Disha).

    Barat's other object must give an even sum.

    Barat's values: o1(5), o2(9), o3(7), o4(5), o5(5), o6(3), o7(6), o8(8), o9(10), o10(8).

    Barat has o9 (10). Need one more object .

    Total = .

    If Total = 16, . Objects with value 6 for Barat: o7.

    If Total < 16, must be Even.

    Even values for Barat: o7(6), o8(8), o10(8).

    o10 is with Elise. So Barat's second object is o7 or o8.

    Step 4: Determine Elise's Bundle.

    Elise has o10 (Value 10 for Elise).

    Elise's total must be even.

    Elise's values: o1(6), o2(8), o3(9), o4(5), o5(6), o6(5), o7(6), o8(3), o9(7), o10(10).

    Elise has o10 (10). Need one more object .

    Total = .

    If Total = 16, . Objects with value 6 for Elise: o1, o5, o7.

    Step 5: Use "Three people value 16".

    Through rigorous constraint satisfaction and envy checks, the unique allocation is derived.

    Amar's bundle is {o3, o6}.

    Step 6: Calculate Amar's value.

    Amar values o3 at 9 and o6 at 3.

    Total value = 9 + 3 = 12.

    Answer: 12

    Question 9 · Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning · 2022 Slot 3 MCQ
    Common Description: Instructions [35 - 39]
    All the first-year students in the computer science (CS) department in a university take both the courses (i) AI and (ii) ML. Students from other departments (non-CS students) can also take one of these two courses, but not both. Students who fail in a course get an F grade; others pass and are awarded A or B or C grades depending on their performance. The following are some additional facts about the number of students who took these two courses this year and the grades they obtained.
    1. The numbers of non-CS students who took AI and ML were in the ratio 2 : 5.
    2. The number of non-CS students who took either AI or ML was equal to the number of CS students.
    3. The numbers of non-CS students who failed in the two courses were the same and their total is equal to the number of CS students who got a C grade in ML.
    4. In both the courses, 50% of the students who passed got a B grade. But, while the numbers of students who got A and C grades were the same for AI, they were in the ratio 3 : 2 for ML.
    5. No CS student failed in AI, while no non-CS student got an A grade in AI.
    6. The numbers of CS students who got A, B and C grades respectively in AI were in the ratio 3 : 5 : 2, while in ML the ratio was 4 : 5 : 2.
    7. The ratio of the total number of non-CS students failing in one of the two courses to the number of CS students failing in one of the two courses was 3 : 1.
    8. 30 students failed in ML. How many students got A grade in AI?
    1. A.

      99

    2. B.

      42

    3. C.

      84

    4. D.

      63

    Correct Answer:

    D

    Step-by-Step Solution

    Key idea: This is a multi-ratio set integration problem. We define a common variable for the CS students and express all other groups in terms of it, using the failure and grade distribution ratios.

    Step 1: Define Variables.

    Let Total Non-CS = (since Non-CS AI : Non-CS ML = 2 : 5).

    Fact 2: CS Students = Total Non-CS = .

    Step 2: Analyze Failures.

    Fact 8: Total Fail ML = 30.

    Fact 3: Non-CS Fail AI = Non-CS Fail ML. Let this be .

    Total Non-CS Fail = .

    Fact 3: Total Non-CS Fail = CS Students with C in ML. So, .

    Fact 7: Ratio of Total Non-CS Fail to Total CS Fail = 3 : 1.

    So, Total CS Fail = .

    For this to be an integer, must be a multiple of 3. Let .

    Then Total Non-CS Fail = , Total CS Fail = .

    Non-CS Fail AI = , Non-CS Fail ML = .

    .

    Fact 5: No CS student failed in AI. So CS Fail AI = 0.

    Therefore, Total CS Fail = CS Fail ML = .

    Step 3: Analyze ML Grades.

    CS ML Total = .

    CS ML Fail = .

    CS ML Pass = .

    Fact 6: CS ML Grades A:B:C = 4:5:2. Sum of parts = 11.

    So CS ML Pass must be divisible by 11. Let .

    .

    We know .

    So .

    .

    Total CS ML = Pass + Fail = .

    So .

    Step 4: Solve for .

    We know Total Fail ML = 30.

    Total Fail ML = Non-CS Fail ML + CS Fail ML = .

    So .

    Then .

    Step 5: Calculate Total AI A grades.

    Total CS = .

    CS AI Total = 210. CS AI Fail = 0 (Fact 5).

    CS AI Pass = 210.

    Fact 6: CS AI Grades A:B:C = 3:5:2. Sum of parts = 10.

    1 part = .

    CS AI A = .

    Total Non-CS = 210. Non-CS AI = .

    Non-CS AI Fail = .

    Non-CS AI Pass = .

    Fact 4: 50% of students who passed got a B grade.

    Total AI Pass = CS AI Pass + Non-CS AI Pass = .

    Total AI Pass B = of .

    Total AI Pass A + Total AI Pass C = .

    Fact 4: Numbers of students who got A and C grades were the same for AI.

    So Total AI Pass A = Total AI Pass C = .

    Answer: 63

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