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

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, which of the following is the only reason NOT given in favour of making peer review data public?

There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: This epistemic humility is precisely what prevents dogmatism from taking root.
Paragraph: The scientific method is often celebrated for its ability to produce definitive truths about the natural world. ___(1)___. However, a closer examination of scientific practice reveals a different foundational virtue. Scientists are trained to treat their most cherished hypotheses as provisional, constantly subjecting them to empirical falsification. ___(2)___. Rather than claiming absolute certainty, the scientific community thrives on the willingness to discard theories when new evidence emerges. ___(3)___. Thus, the true strength of science lies not in its infallibility, but in its systematic capacity for self-correction. ___(4)___.

There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: This profound silence has led researchers to question the underlying assumptions of our astrobiological models.
Paragraph: The Fermi Paradox highlights the stark contradiction between the high probability of extraterrestrial civilizations existing in the universe and the complete lack of evidence for, or contact with, such civilizations. ___(1)___. Given the vast number of stars and potentially habitable planets, statistical models suggest that intelligent life should be relatively common. ___(2)___. Yet, despite decades of intensive radio astronomy and space exploration, the cosmos appears remarkably silent. ___(3)___. Some scientists propose the "Great Filter" hypothesis to resolve this tension. ___(4)___. This theory suggests that there is an evolutionary barrier that prevents life from advancing to a stage where interstellar communication is possible.

Common Description: Instructions [30 - 33]
The table given below shows the amount, in grams, of carbohydrate, protein, fat and all other nutrients, per 100 grams of nutrients in seven food grains. The first column shows the food grain category and the second column its codename. The table has some missing values.

Food grain Category	Codename of the food grain	Carbohydrate	Protein	Fat	Other nutrients
Cereal	C1			0	12
Cereal	C2			3	10
Millet	M1	62	10
Millet	M2			7	16
Millet	M3	56		12
Pseudo-cereal	P1	66			10
Pseudo-cereal	P2		14		8

The following additional facts are known.
1. Both the pseudo-cereals had higher amounts of carbohydrate as well as higher amounts of protein than any millet.
2. Both the cereals had higher amounts of carbohydrate than any pseudo-cereal.
3. All the missing values of carbohydrate amounts (in grams) for all the food grains are non-zero multiples of 5.
4. All the missing values of protein, fat and other nutrients amounts (in grams) for all the food grains are non-zero multiples of 4.
5. P1 contained double the amount of protein that M3 contains. How many grams of other nutrients were there in 100 grams of nutrients in M3?

Common Description: Instructions [40 - 44]
Anjali, Bipasha, and Chitra visited an entertainment park that has four rides. Each ride lasts one hour and can accommodate one visitor at one point. All rides begin at 9 am and must be completed by 5 pm except for Ride-3, for which the last ride has to be completed by 1 pm. Ride gates open every 30 minutes, e.g. 10 am, 10:30 am, and so on. Whenever a ride gate opens, and there is no visitor inside, the first visitor waiting in the queue buys the ticket just before taking the ride. The ticket prices are Rs. 20, Rs. 50, Rs. 30 and Rs. 40 for Rides 1 to 4, respectively. Each of the three visitors took at least one ride and did not necessarily take all rides. None of them took the same ride more than once. The movement time from one ride to another is negligible, and a visitor leaves the ride immediately after the completion of the ride. No one takes a break inside the park unless mentioned explicitly.
The following information is also known.
1. Chitra never waited in the queue and completed her visit by 11 am after spending Rs. 50 to pay for the ticket(s).
2. Anjali took Ride-1 at 11 am after waiting for 30 mins for Chitra to complete it. It was the only ride where Anjali waited.
3. Bipasha began her first of three rides at 11:30 am. All three visitors incurred the same amount of ticket expense by 12:15 pm.
4. The last ride taken by Anjali and Bipasha was the same, where Bipasha waited 30 mins for Anjali to complete her ride. Before standing in the queue for that ride, Bipasha took a 1-hour coffee break after completing her previous ride. What was the total amount spent on tickets (in Rs.) by Anjali?

Eight people, A through H, sit in a circle facing the center.

1. A sits $3$rd to the left of B.
2. C sits immediate right of D.
3. E sits exactly between A and F in the shorter path.
4. G sits $3$rd to the left of F.
5. H sits opposite A.

Who sits $2$nd to the right of H?