CAT 2017 Slot 2 — VARC Question 34
Answer the following questions based on the information given below.
Despite their fierce reputation, Vikings may not have always been the plunderers and pillagers popular culture imagines them to be. In fact, they got their start trading in northern European markets, researchers suggest.
Combs carved from animal antlers, as well as comb manufacturing waste and raw antler material has turned up at three archaeological sites in Denmark, including a medieval marketplace in the city of Ribe. A team of researchers from Denmark and U.K.hoped to identify the species of animal to which the antlers once belonged by analyzing collagen proteins in the samples and comparing them across the animal kingdom, Laura Geggel reports for liveScience.
Somewhat surprisingly, molecular analysis of the artifacts revealed that some combs and other material had been carved from reindeer antlers…. Given that reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) don’t live in Denmark, the researchers posit that it arrived on Viking ships from Norway. Antler craftsmanship, in the form of decorative combs, was part of Viking culture. Such combs served as symbols of good health, Geggel writes. The fact that the animals shed their antlers also made them easy to collect from the large herds that inhabited Norway.
Since the artifacts were found in marketplace areas at each site it’s more likely that the Norsemen came to trade rather than pillage. Most of the artifacts also date to the 780s, but some are as old as 725. That predates the beginning of Viking raids on great Britain by about 70 years. (Traditionally, the so-called “Viking Age” began with these raids in 793 and ended with Norman conquest of Great Britain in 1066.) Archaeologists had suspected that the Viking had experience with ling maritime voyages [that] might have preceded their raiding days. Beyond Norway, these combs would have been a popular industry in Scandinavia as well. It’s possible that the antler comb’s represent a larger trade network, where the Norsemen supplied raw material to craftsmen in Denmark and elsewhere.
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.
- Those geometric symbols and aerodynamic swooshes are more than just skin deep.
- The Commonwealth Bank logo – a yellow diamond, with a black chunk sliced out in one corner – is so recognisable that the bank doesn’t even use its full name in its advertising.
- It’s not just logos with hidden shapes; sometimes brands will have meanings or stories within them that are deliberately vague or lost in time, urging you to delve deeper to solve the riddle.
- Graphic designers embed cryptic references because it adds a story to the brand; they want people to spend more time with a brand and have that idea that they are an insider if they can understand the hidden message.
- But the CommonBank logo has more to it than meets the eye, as squirrelled away in that diamond is the Southern Cross constellation.
Answer & solution
Answer: 1
The set of sentences has as its premise, the significance of corporate logos. Sentences 2 and 5 refer to the commonwealth bank logo. The others do not. Sentence 1 refers to ‘those geometric symbols’ being more than skin deep ; sentence 2 refers to the logo of the commonwealth bank as one that is recognisable ; sentence 3 talks about hidden meanings in logos like a riddle ; sentence 4 refers to embedded cryptic references being added by graphic designers ; the last option refers to a hidden symbol in the commbank logo. Among the lot, only option 1 does not refer to logos or pictorial representations of brands. Thus that is clearly the odd option.
Hence, the correct answer is 1.