CAT 2017 Slot 1 — VARC Question 33
Answer the following question based on the information given below.
Do sports mega events like the Summer Olympic Games benefit the host city economically? It depends, but the prospects are less than rosy. The trick is converting… several billion dollars in operating costs during the 17-day fiesta of the games into a basis for long-term economic returns. These days, the Summer Olympic games themselves generate total revenue of 5 billion, but the lion’s share of this goes to the International Olympics Committee, the National Olympics Committees and the International sports Federations. Any economic benefit would have to flow from the value of the Games as an advertisement for the city, the new transportation and communications infrastructure that was created for the Games, or the ongoing use of the new facilities.
Evidence suggests that the advertising effect is far from certain. The infrastructure benefit depends on the initial condition of the city and the effectiveness of the planning. The facilities benefits is dubious at best for buildings such as velodromes or natatoriums and problematic for 100,000-seat Olympic stadiums. The latter require a conversion plan for future use, the former are usually doomed to near vacancy. Hosting the summer Games generally requires 30-plus sports venues and dozens of training centers. Today, the bird’s Nest in Beijing sits virtually empty, while the Olympic stadium in Sydney costs some $30 million a year to operate.
Part of the problem is that Olympics planning takes place in a frenzied and time-pressured atmosphere of intense competition with the other prospective host cities – not optimal conditions for contemplating the future shape of an urban landscape. Another part of the problem is that urban land is generally scarce and growing scarcer. The new facilities often stand for decades or longer. Even if they have future use, are they the best use of precious urban real estate?Further, cities must consider the human cost, Residential areas often are razed and citizens relocated (without adequate preparation or compensation). Life is made more hectic and congested. There are, after all, other productive uses that can be made of vanishing fiscal resources.
Five sentences related to a topic are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a meaningful and coherent short paragraph. Identify the odd one out.
- Neuroscientists have just began studying exercise’s impact within brain cells – on the genes themselves.
- Even there, in the roots of our biology, they’ve found signs of the body’s influence on the mind.
- It turns out that moving our muscles produces proteins that travels through the bloodstream and into the brain, where they play pivotal roles in the mechanisms of our highest thought processes.
- In today’s technology–driven, plasma–screened–in world, it’s easy to forget that we are born movers–animals, in fact – because we’ve engineered movement right out of our lives.
- It’s only in the past few years that neuroscientists have begun to describe these factors and how they work, and each new discovery adds awe–inspiring depth to the picture.
Answer & solution
Answer: 4
The sentences that form the paragraph are not jumbled up. An out of context sentence is inserted into the paragraph.
The sentences describe the work of neuroscientists who are studying the impact that exercise has on brain cells. In the roots of biology – or in the brain cells – they find that body influences the mind – that any movement of the muscles produces proteins which travel to the brain and affect our thoughts.
It is only recently that neuroscientists have begun to describe this kind of influence of the body on the mind.
From this point of view sentence 4 is out of context – because it comments on the sedentary technology driven life style that we have embraced.
Hence, option (d).