CAT 2019 Slot 1 — VARC Question 26
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
A distinguishing feature of language is our ability to refer to absent things, known as displaced reference. A speaker can bring distant referents to mind in the absence of any obvious stimuli. Thoughts, not limited to the here and now, can pop into our heads for unfathomable reasons. This ability to think about distant things necessarily precedes the ability to talk about them. Thought precedes meaningful referential communication. A prerequisite for the emergence of human-like meaningful symbols is that the mental categories they relate to can be invoked even in the absence of immediate stimuli.
Answer & solution
Correct answer: The ability to think about objects not present in our environment precedes the development of human communication.
- A
Thoughts precede all speech acts and these thoughts pop up in our heads even in the absence of any stimulus.
- B
Thoughts are essential to communication and only humans have the ability to think about objects not present in their surroundings.
The ability to think about objects not present in our environment precedes the development of human communication.
- D
Displaced reference is particular to humans and thoughts pop into our heads for no real reason.
Easy
Pin down the single central claim and pick the option that states it cleanly without over-reaching. The passage's core point is a sequence claim: the ability to think about absent things (displaced reference) necessarily precedes the ability to talk about them, i.e. thought precedes meaningful referential communication. Reject options that add unwarranted certainty ("all", "only") or that drop the precedence point.
Option 1 — cut. "Thoughts precede all speech acts" overstates the case. The passage talks specifically about meaningful referential communication, not every speech act. The blanket "all" is an unsupported addition.
Option 2 — cut. "Only humans have the ability to think about objects not present" introduces an exclusivity claim the passage never makes. Distortion via over-restriction.
Option 3 — keep. "The ability to think about objects not present in our environment precedes the development of human communication." This is precisely the passage's central precedence claim, stated without exaggeration. This is the answer.
Option 4 — cut. It calls displaced reference "particular to humans" (an unsupported exclusivity claim) and reduces the message to "thoughts pop into our heads for no real reason" — a stray detail, not the central precedence point. It omits the key idea while adding an unwarranted one.
The correct answer is Option 3: the capacity to think about absent objects precedes the development of human communication.
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