CAT 2020 Slot 1 — VARC Question 24
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
For nearly a century most psychologists have embraced one view of intelligence. Individuals are born with more or less intelligence potential (I.Q.); this potential is heavily influenced by heredity and difficult to alter; experts in measurement can determine a person’s intelligence early in life, currently from paper-and-pencil measures, perhaps eventually from examining the brain in action or even scrutinizing his/her genome. Recently, criticism of this conventional wisdom has mounted. Biologists ask if speaking of a single entity called “intelligence” is coherent and question the validity of measures used to estimate heritability of a trait in humans, who, unlike plants or animals, are not conceived and bred under controlled conditions.
1. Biologists have questioned the long-standing view that ‘intelligence’ is a single entity and the attempts to estimate its heritability.
2. Biologists have started questioning psychologists' view of 'intelligence' as a measurable immutable characteristic of an individual.
3. Biologists have questioned the view that ‘intelligence’ is a single entity and the ways in which what is inherited.
4. Biologists have criticised that conventional wisdom that individuals are born with more or less intelligence potential.
Answer & solution
Answer: 1
Easy
Pin the exact claim being criticised and who is criticising it, then keep the option that preserves every key element. Core idea: biologists now challenge the old psychologists’ view by questioning (a) whether “intelligence” is a single entity, and (b) the validity of measures used to estimate its heritability.
Option 1 — best. “Biologists have questioned the long-standing view that ‘intelligence’ is a single entity and the attempts to estimate its heritability.” This keeps both prongs precisely — the single-entity doubt and the heritability-estimation doubt. Complete and faithful.
Option 2. “…questioning psychologists’ view of ‘intelligence’ as a measurable immutable characteristic.” It captures the single-entity/measurability angle but omits the heritability-estimation point that the passage explicitly raises. Misses a key half.
Option 3. “…the single entity and the ways in which what is inherited.” A distortion — biologists question the validity of estimating heritability itself, not the “ways in which” intelligence is inherited. Wrong target.
Option 4. “…criticised the conventional wisdom that individuals are born with more or less intelligence potential.” It restates one old belief but omits the single-entity doubt and the heritability point — the actual substance of the criticism. Incomplete.
Best summary: Option 1. Key in 1.