CAT 1999 — VARC Question 21
Directions: 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 is ill. He asks a man who has just lost 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.
If you are in a three-month software design project and, in two weeks, you’ve put together a program that solves part of the problem, show it to your boss without delay.
Answer & solution
- A
and, you’ve put together a program that solves part of the problem in two weeks
and, in two weeks, you’ve put together a program that solves part of the problem
- C
and, you’ve put together a program that has solved part of the problem in two weeks
- D
and, in two weeks, you put together a program that solved only part of the problem
(b) is the correct answer choice.
The question tests you for the correct positioning of the adverbial phrase ‘in two weeks.’ Since this phrase relates to ‘putting together a programme,’ it should be positioned closest to the verb phrase it modifies. The possible positions are examined below:
(i) ‘You’ve put together (in two weeks) a programme ...’
[Incorrect. Adverb cannot come between the verb and its object.]
(ii) ‘You’ve put together a programme (in two weeks) that solves ...’
[Incorrect. Here the adverb cannot separate the noun ‘program’ and the relative pronoun. ‘that’, which modifies it.]
(iii) ‘(in two weeks) you’ve put together a programme ...’
[Correct. The adverbial phrase is close to the verb it modifies and is not intrusive in this position.]
In (a) and (c), the intended meaning changes. It appears that ‘the problem is solved in two weeks,’ rather than ‘the programme being put together in two weeks’.
(d) in incorrect as the adverbial phrase ‘in two weeks’ should be cordoned off by two commas, and introduction of “only” changes the meaning.