GATE XH-C5 topic:behavioral-science PYQs & Answers — Page 35

Questions 341–350 of 390. Imported answers require independent review unless marked reviewed.

Gerrymandering refers to the targeted redrawing of election constituencies so as to benefit a particular party. This is especially important where the electoral system is “first past the post” in each constituency (i.e. one winner is selected in each constituency based on a majority of votes won) and where there is no other provision for proportional representation (as for example in the German system). For a simple illustration of gerrymandering, if a region consists of districts 1, 2, 3, ..., 9 with districts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 favouring party P and 7, 8, 9 favouring party Q, then grouping of districts to constituencies as , , will give two seats to party P and one seat to party Q, whereas the grouping , , will give all three seats to party P, as they will secure a majority in each constituency. Which of these statements can be deduced from the above?

Your answerChoose one option.

Gerrymandering implies that constituency boundaries can sometimes be drawn to favour one party over the other.

Gerrymandering implies that proportional representation is impossible when districts are grouped to form constituencies.

To counteract gerrymandering political parties should concentrate on districts where they are favored.

The grouping of districts to constituencies has very little impact on proportional representation.

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X-ray examination of a recently discovered painting that some authorities judge to be a self-portrait by Michelangelo revealed an under-image of a woman's face. Either Michelangelo or some other artist must have painted over the first painting that had now been seen on the canvas. Because the woman's face also appears on other paintings by Michelangelo, this painting is determined to indeed be an authentic painting by Michelangelo. Which of the following assumptions must be made in reaching the conclusion above?

Your answerChoose one option.

When an already painted canvas of an artist is used, the second artist using that canvas for a new painting is usually influenced by the artistic style of the first.

Several painted canvases that art historians attribute to Michelangelo contain under-images that appear on at least one other of Michelangelo's paintings.

Subject or objects that appear in authenticated paintings of Michelangelo are rather unlikely to show up as under-images on painted canvases not attributed to Michelangelo.

No painted canvas can be attributed to a particular artist with certainty without an X-ray analysis.

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This season ______ tourists visited Ladakh than last season; however, ______ to be the biggest tourist destination in India. The tourism department explains that the number of tourists to India has ______ relative to the previous years, ______ have chosen to visit Ladakh. Select the correct sequence of phrases to fill in the blanks to complete the passage above.

Your answerChoose one option.

more / for the first time in many seasons it does not appear / increased / and it seems that most

fewer / as in the past, it appears / in fact decreased / but it seems that only a small proportion

fewer / for the first time in many seasons it appears / in fact decreased / but it seems that most

more / this season as well, it appears / in fact decreased / but it seems that a large proportion

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Reorder the sentences in (1) – (5) such that they form a coherent paragraph. (1) In fact, dozens of languages today have only one native speaker still living, and that person's death will mean the extinction of the language: It will no longer be spoken, or known, by anyone on earth. (2) Many languages are falling out of use and are being replaced by others that are more widely used in the region or nation, such as English in Australia or Portuguese in Brazil. (3) Many other languages are no longer being learned by new generations of children or by new adult speakers. (4) An endangered language is one that is likely to become extinct in the near future. (5) Unless the trends are reversed, these endangered languages will become extinct by the end of the century. (Adapted from What is an Endangered Language by A. Woodbury.)

Your answerChoose one option.

2 3 1 4 5

2 3 5 4 1

4 1 5 2 3

4 2 3 1 5

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The first (P1) and the last (P6) parts of a single sentence are given to you. The rest of the sentence is divided into four parts and labelled L, M, N, O. Reorder these parts so that the sentence can be read correctly and select one of the sequences below.

P1: For a little while…

L: it was a common belief

M: right after the treaty of Versailles

N: that Germany had caused World War I not just by her actions

O: held by analysts and politicians alike

P6: … but by also encouraging Italy in her own aggressions.

Your answerChoose one option.

LMNO

MLON

LNMO

MOLN

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After Florentino Ariza saw her for the first time, his mother knew before he told her because he lost his voice and his appetite and spent the entire night tossing and turning in his bed. But when he began to wait for the answer to his first letter, his anguish was complicated by diarrhoea and green vomit, he became disoriented and suffered from sudden fainting spells, and his mother was terrified because his condition did not resemble the turmoil of love so much as the devastation of cholera. Florentino Ariza’s godfather, an old homeopathic practitioner who had been Tránsito Ariza’s confidant ever since her days as a secret mistress, was also alarmed at first by the patient’s condition, because he had the weak pulse, the hoarse breathing, and the pale perspiration of a dying man. But his examination revealed that he had no fever, no pain anywhere, and that his only concrete feeling was an urgent desire to die. All that was needed was shrewd questioning, first of the patient and then of his mother, to conclude once again that the symptoms of love were the same as those of cholera. He prescribed infusions of linden blossoms to calm the nerves and suggested a change of air so he could find consolation in distance, but Florentino Ariza longed for just the opposite: to enjoy his martyrdom.

(Adapted from Love in a Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez.)

The author of the passage is implying that:

Your answerSelect all correct options. You can choose more than one.

Homeopathy cures love.

The doctor could not distinguish between love and cholera.

The doctor could distinguish between love and cholera.

The symptoms of love and cholera are similar.

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Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.

(Adapted from Politics and the English Language by George Orwell.)

The illustration of the man who takes to drink is used to underscore which of the following ideas in the passage above?

Your answerSelect all correct options. You can choose more than one.

Political and economic causes control deterioration of language.

Foolish thoughts are enabled by inaccurate language.

Effect of an action becomes the cause in a cyclic pattern.

Drinking enables people to have foolish thoughts and slovenly language.

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It is a pity that Caste even today has its defenders. The defences are many. It is defended on the grounds that the Caste System is but another name for division of labour, and if division of labour is a necessary feature of every civilised society, then it is argued that there is nothing wrong in the Caste System. Now the first thing to be urged against this view is that Caste System is not merely division of labour. It is also a division of labourers. Civilised society undoubtedly needs division of labour but nowhere is division of labour accompanied by this unnatural division of labourers into watertight compartments, grading them one above the other. This division of labour is not spontaneous or based on natural aptitudes. Social and individual efficiency requires us to develop the individual capacity and competency to choose and to make his own career. This principle is violated in so far as it involves an attempt to appoint tasks to individuals in advance, not on the basis of trained original capacities, but on that of birth. Industry undergoes rapid and abrupt changes and an individual must be free to change his occupation and adjust himself to changing circumstances, to gain his livelihood. (Adapted from Annihilation of Caste by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar.)

Which of the following observations substantiate the arguments found in the passage above?

Your answerSelect all correct options. You can choose more than one.

Newer generations are unable to change and move away from low-paying family professions, even with changed economic circumstances.

Sedentary desk jobs are considered to have more value and are in greater demand than those involving manual labour.

The government’s jobs guarantee programme makes low-level management jobs available across all industries to all graduates in the nation.

A bus driver becomes an app creator and, in the course of one month, reaches one million downloads on Playstore with a four-star rating.

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Imagine that you’re in a game show and your host shows you three doors. Behind one of them is a shiny car and behind the others are goats. You pick one of the doors and get what lies within. After making your choice, your host chooses to open one of the other two doors, which inevitably reveals a goat. He then asks you if you want to stick with your original pick, or switch to the other remaining door. What do you do? Most people think that it doesn’t make a difference and they tend to stick with their first pick. With two doors left, you should have a 50% chance of selecting the one with the car. If you agree, then you have just fallen afoul of one of the most infamous mathematical problems – the Monty Hall Problem. In reality, you should switch every time which doubles your odds of getting the car. Over the years, the problem has ensnared countless people, but not, it seems, pigeons. The humble pigeon can learn with practice the best tactic for the Monty Hall Problem, switching from their initial choice almost every time. Amazingly, humans do not!

(Adapted from an article by Ed Yong in Discover Magazine.)

Which of the following conclusions follow from the passage above?

Your answerSelect all correct options. You can choose more than one.

Humans calculate the probability of independent, random events such as the opening of a door by dividing the specific outcomes by the total number of possible outcomes.

Humans find it very difficult to learn to account for the host’s hand in making the event non-random and, thereby, changing the outcome of the event.

Calculating probabilities is difficult for humans but easy for pigeons; which is why the pigeons succeed where the humans fail.

Humans are governed by reason, but pigeons are irrational and only interested in the outcome and will do whatever it takes to get food.

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The truth is that, despite the recent success of car-makers P and Q, India’s automobile industry is in a state not that different from the bad old days of the license-permit quota raj when carmakers dominated a captive domestic market with substandard vehicles and with very little, if any, research and development, and low to negligible productivity growth. High tariff barriers have certainly induced foreign automobile makers to enter the Indian market by setting up local operations, but this so-called “tariff jump” foreign investment has produced an industry that is inefficient, operating generally at a low scale, and whose products are not globally competitive either in terms of cost or of innovation. It is noteworthy that the automobile parts industry, which has faced low tariffs (as low as 12.5%) and has been largely deregulated, has been characterised by higher productivity and much better export performance than the completely-built units’ sector in the years since liberalisation.

(Adapted from an Op-Ed in The Mint.)

Which of the following statements can be inferred from the above?

Your answerSelect all correct options. You can choose more than one.

Low tariff barriers increase productivity.

Tariff jumping leads to increases in productivity.

Deregulation has worked for the automobile parts industry and therefore should be applied to completely-built units.

P and Q do not invest enough in research and development.

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GATE XH-C5 topic:behavioral-science PYQs

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