CAT 2020 Slot 1 — VARC Question 22
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
As Soviet power declined, the world became to some extent multipolar, and Europe strove to define an independent identity. What a journey Europe has undertaken to reach this point. It had in every century changed its internal structure and invented new ways of thinking about the nature of international order. Now at the culmination of an era, Europe, in order to participate in it, felt obliged to set aside the political mechanisms through which it had conducted its affairs for three and a half centuries. Impelled also by the desire to cushion the emergent unification of Germany, the new European Union established a common currency in 2002 and a formal political structure in 2004. It proclaimed a Europe united, whole, and free, adjusting its differences by peaceful mechanisms.
1. Europe has consistently changed its internal structure to successfully adapt to the changing world order.
2. Europe has consistently changed in keeping with the changing world order and that has culminated in a united Europe.
3. The establishment of a formal political structure in Europe was hastened by the unification of Germany and the emergence of a multipolar world.
4. Europe has chosen to lower political and economic heterogeneity, in order to adapt itself to an emerging multi-polar world.
Answer & solution
Answer: 4
Easy
For a summary, lock the passage’s central point, then reject options that distort, add, or omit. Core idea: facing a multipolar world, Europe set aside its old political mechanisms and built a common currency and a formal political structure — i.e. it deliberately reduced its internal political and economic differences to adapt.
Option 1. “Europe has consistently changed its internal structure to adapt to the changing world order.” True of Europe’s history but it stops at the generic past and omits the passage’s real focus — the recent move (common currency, EU) to lower internal differences. Too generic.
Option 2. “…changed in keeping with the changing world order and that has culminated in a united Europe.” Closer, but vague — “a united Europe” misses the specific mechanism (reducing political/economic heterogeneity to adapt to a multipolar world). Captures the “what” loosely, not the essence.
Option 3. “The establishment of a formal political structure … was hastened by the unification of Germany and the emergence of a multipolar world.” A true detail, but it zooms in on one cause of one step; it omits the larger point about adapting by lowering internal differences. A part, not the whole.
Option 4 — best. “Europe has chosen to lower political and economic heterogeneity, in order to adapt itself to an emerging multi-polar world.” This captures both moves — common currency (economic) and formal political structure (political) — as a deliberate lowering of internal differences, driven by the multipolar context. Essence, exactly.
Best summary: Option 4. Key in 4.