Critical Reasoning Questions with Solutions (Test 2)

Directions for the Questions 1 & 2: For each of the two questions, indicate which of the statements given with that particular
question is consistent with the description of the unseasonable man in the passage below.

Unseasonableness is a tendency to do socially permissible things at the wrong time. The unseasonable man is the sort of person who comes to confide in you when you are busy. He serenades his beloved when she’s ill. He asks a man who has just money by paying a bill for a friend to pay a bill for him. He invites a friend to go for a ride just after the friend has finished a long car trip. He is eager to offer services which are not wanted but which cannot be politely refused. If he is present at an arbitration, he stirs up dissension
between the two parties, who were really anxious to agree, such is the unseasonable man.

Q1. He tends to

Q2. The unseasonable man tends to

Directions for Questions 3 to 9: Four alternative summaries are given below each text. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the text.

Q3. Some decisions will be fairly obvious - “no-brainers.” Your bank account is low, but you have a two week vacation coming up and
you want to get away to some place warm to relax with your family. Will you accept your in-laws’ offer of free use of their Florida
beachfront condo ? Sure. You like your employer and feel ready to move forward in your career. Will you step in for your boss for
three weeks while she attends a professional development course? Of course (2003)
A. Some decisions are obvious under certain circumstances. You may, for example, readily accept a relative’s offer of free
holiday accommodation. Or step in for your boss when she is away.
B. Some decisions are no brainers. You need not think when making them. Examples are condo offers from in-laws and job
offers from bosses when your bank account is low or boss is away.
C. Easy decisions are called “no-brainers” because they do not require any cerebral activity. Examples such as accepting free
holiday accommodation abound in our lives.
D. Accepting an offer from in-laws when you are short on funds and want a holiday is a no-brainer. Another no-brainer is taking
the boss’s job when she is away.

Q4. Physically, inertia is a feeling that you just can’t move; mentally, it is a sluggish mind. Even if you try to be sensitive, if your mind is sluggish, you just don’t feel anything intensely. You may even see a tragedy enacted in front of your eyes and not be able to respond meaningfully. You may see one person exploiting another, one group persecuting another, and not be able to get angry.
Your energy is frozen. You are not deliberately refusing to act; you just don’t have the capacity. 
A. Inertia makes your body and mind sluggish. They become insensitive to tragedies, exploitation, and persecution because it
freezes your energy and decapacitates it.
B. When you have inertia you don’t act although you see one person exploiting another or one group persecuting another.
You don’t get angry because you are incapable.
C. Inertia is of two types – physical and mental. Physical inertia restricts bodily movements. Mental inertia prevents mental
response to events enacted in front of your eyes.
D. Physical inertia stops your body from moving; mental inertia freezes your energy and stop your mind from responding
meaningfully to events, even tragedies, in front of you.

Q5. Try before you buy We use this memorable saying to urge you to experience the consequences of an alternative before you choose it, whenever this is feasible . If you are considering buying a van after having always owned sedans, rent one for a week or borrow a friend’s. By experiencing the consequences first hand, they become more meaningful. In addition, you are likely to identify consequences you had not even thought of before. May be you will discover that it is difficult to park the van in your
small parking space at work, but that, on the other hand, your elderly father has a much easier time getting in and out of it 
A. If you are planning to buy a van after being used to sedans, borrow a van or rent it and try it before deciding to buy it. Then
you may realize that parking a van is difficult while it is easier for your elderly father to get in and out of it.
B. Before choosing an alternative, experience its consequences if feasible. If, for example, you want to change from sedans to
a van, try one before buying it . You will discover aspects you may never have thought of.
C. Always try before you buy anything. You are bound to discover many consequences. One of the consequences of going
in for a van is that it is more difficult to park than sedans at the office car park.
D. We urge you to try products such as vans before buying them. Then you can experience consequences you have not
thought of such as parking problems. But your father may find vans more comfortable than cars.

Q6.  It is important for shipping companies to be clear about the objectives for maintenance and materials management - as to whether
the primary focus is on service level improvement or cost minimization. Often when certain systems are set in place, the cost
minimization objective and associated procedure become more important than the flexibility required for service level improvement.
The problem really arises since cost minimization tends to focus on out of pocket costs which are visible, while the opportunity
costs, often greater in value, are lost sight of. 
A. Shipping companies have to either minimize costs or maximize service quality. If they focus on cost minimization, they will
reduce quality. They should focus on service level improvement, or else opportunity costs will be lost sight of.

B. Shipping companies should determine the primary focus of their maintenance and materials management. Focus on cost
minimization may reduce visible costs, but ignore greater invisible costs and impair service quality.
C. Any cost minimization program in shipping is bound to lower the quality of service. Therefore, shipping companies must be
clear about the primary focus of their maintenance and materials management before embarking on cost minimization.
D. Shipping companies should focus on quality level improvement rather than cost cutting . Cost cutting will lead to untold
opportunity costs. Companies should have systems in place to make the service level flexible.

Q7. You seemed at first to take no notice of your school-fellows, or rather to set yourself against them because they were strangers to you. They knew as little of you as you did of them; this would have been the reason for their keeping aloof from you as well, which you would have felt as a hardship. Learn never to conceive a prejudice against others because you know nothing of them.

It is bad reasoning, and makes enemies of half the world. Do not think ill of them till they behave ill to you; and then strive to avoid the faults which you see in them. This will disarm their hostility sooner than pique or resentment or complaint.

Q8. The human race is spread all over the world, from the polar regions to the tropics. The people of whom it is made up eat different kinds of food, partly according to the climate in which they live, and partly according to the kind of food which their country produces. In hot climates, meat and fat are not much needed; but in the Arctic regions they seem to be very necessary for keeping up the heat of the body. Thus, in India, people live chiefly on different kinds of grains, eggs, milk, or sometimes fish and meat. In Europe, people eat more meat and less grain. In the regions, where no grains and fruits are produced, the Eskimo and other races live almost entirely on meat and fish.

Q9. Although almost all climate scientists agree that the Earth is gradually warming, they have long been of two minds about the process of rapid climate shifts within larger periods of change. Some have speculated that the process works like a giant oven or freezer, warming or cooling the whole planet at the same time. Others think that shifts occur on opposing schedules in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, like exaggerated seasons. Recent research in Germany examining climate patterns in the Southern Hemisphere at the end of the last Ice Age strengthens the idea that warming and cooling occurs at alternate times in the two hemispheres. A more definitive answer to his debate will allow scientists to better predict when and how quickly the next climate shift will happen.

Q10. Modern bourgeois society, said Nietzsche, was decadent and enfeebled - a victim of the excessive development of the rational faculties at the expense of will and instinct. Against the liberal-rationalist stress on the intellect, Nietzsche urged recognition of the dark mysterious world of instinctual desires- the true forces of life. Smother the will with excessive intellectualizing and you destroy the spontaneity that sparks cultural creativity and ignites a zest for living. The critical and theoretical outlook destroyed
the creative instincts. For man’s manifold potential to be realized, he must forego relying on the intellect and nurture again the instinctual roots of human existence.