CAT 2019 Slot 2 — VARC Question 34
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Privacy-challenged office workers may find it hard to believe, but open-plan offices and cubicles were invented by architects and designers who thought that to break down the social walls that divide people, you had to break down the real walls, too. Modernist architects saw walls and rooms as downright fascist. The spaciousness and flexibility of an open plan would liberate homeowners and office dwellers from the confines of boxes. But companies took up their idea less out of a democratic ideology than a desire to pack in as many workers as they could. The typical open-plan office of the first half of the 20th century was a white-collar assembly line. Cubicles were interior designers’ attempt to put some soul back in.
Answer & solution
- A
Wall-free office spaces did not quite work out as desired and therefore cubicles came into being.
- B
Wall-free office spaces could have worked out the way their utopian inventors intended had companies cared for workers' satisfaction.
Wall-free office spaces did not quite work out the way their utopian inventors intended, as they became tools for exploitation of labor.
- D
Wall-free office spaces did not quite work out as companies don’t believe in democratic ideology.
Easy
Capture the full arc of the passage and reject options that omit a key part or distort the cause. The passage has two linked beats: (a) modernist designers' utopian intent — open plans were meant to break down social walls and liberate workers; (b) the actual outcome — companies adopted them merely to pack in more workers (a "white-collar assembly line"), i.e. exploitation of labour.
Pin the central idea. Architects' idealistic goal (liberation, breaking down walls) versus companies' real motive — "a desire to pack in as many workers as they could," turning the office into an assembly line. The right summary needs both the failed utopian intent and the labour-exploitation outcome.
Option 1 — omits and reframes. It just says open spaces "did not quite work out... and therefore cubicles came into being." It drops the utopian intent and, crucially, the exploitation-of-labour point. Too thin. Eliminate.
Option 2 — distorts the cause. It claims open plans "could have worked... had companies cared for workers' satisfaction." The passage never frames the failure as a worker-satisfaction issue; the cause was companies cramming in workers. Eliminate.
Option 3 — complete. "Wall-free office spaces did not quite work out the way their utopian inventors intended, as they became tools for exploitation of labor." This carries both the failed idealistic intent and the labour-exploitation outcome. Correct.
Option 4 — omits the labour point. It blames companies not believing in "democratic ideology," but ignores the central fact that the spaces became a means of packing in / exploiting workers. Incomplete, so eliminate.
Correct answer: Option 3 — "Wall-free office spaces did not quite work out the way their utopian inventors intended, as they became tools for exploitation of labor."