XAT 2015 — VARC Question 28
Analyse the passage given and provide an appropriate answer for the questions that follow.
Creative thinking can be used by management teams to produce actions that will potentially increase innovation and identify opportunities. Brainstorming is one technique that can enhance creativity. Brainstorming is usually regarded as a method to be used with groups of people. Although, it can be employed with individuals, the benefit of involving a group is that one person’s idea can help to stimulate even more ideas by other group members.
Underlying brainstorm is the idea that people’s creativity is restricted because they tend to reject ideas at too early a stage. This can be because they may be imposing imaginary constraints on a problem or making false assumptions. Alternatively, they may be unable to see a problem from multiple perspectives or they may be stereotyping problems and possible solutions and hence failing to see their wider potential. Involvement of people with different perspectives enriches the idea generation.
Which of the following options would be closest to the main argument in the second paragraph above?
Answer & solution
- A
Viewing students as customers, future alumni, brand ambassadors, potential recruiters etc., would make engineering colleges more successful.
- B
Good students, after completing the MBA, should play multiple roles in an organization to become successful leaders.
- C
India does better in team sports like cricket than in individual sports like swimming.
All departments of the organization, including marketing, should give inputs to generate new ideas for improving customer satisfaction.
- E
Compared to small entrepreneurial firms, large organisations will definitely generate more ideas.
The main argument in the second paragraph of the passage is that when individuals try to come up with ideas on their own, they do not fare as well as they do during idea generation in a group of people. Idea generation is smoother when multiple perspectives are involved.
Option 1 is irrelevant to the main argument.
Option 2 reverses the logic of the argument- it says that a single individual should give multiple inputs; the argument in the paragraph is that an individual should accept multiple inputs from others.
Option 3 is not directly related to the argument. It talks about team work in sports, but there are several other factors involved here like amount of support given, playing conditions, skill, training etc. Also, this should be a concept not restricted to India alone.
Option 4 is parallel to the reasoning in the second paragraph; it says that multiple inputs from various departments of a company should be utilized for idea generation.
Option 5 is incorrect; even small firms can operate on the principle of accepting multiple ideas. It is not the number of people that matters, it is merely the multiplicity of perspectives.
Hence, the correct answer is option 4.