XAT 2020 — VARC Question 8
Read the passage below and answer the 3 associated questions:
Once, during a concert of cathedral organ music, as I sat getting gooseflesh amid that tsunami of sound, I was struck with a thought: for a medieval peasant, this must have been the loudest human-made sound they ever experienced, awe-inspiring in now-unimaginable ways. No wonder they signed up for the religion being proffered. And now we are constantly pummeled with sounds that dwarf quaint organs. Once, hunter-gatherers might chance upon honey from a beehive and thus briefly satisfy a hardwired food craving. And now we have hundreds of carefully designed commercial foods that supply a burst of sensation unmatched by some lowly natural food. Once, we had lives that, amid considerable privation, also offered numerous subtle, hard-won pleasures. And now we have drugs that cause spasms of pleasure and dopamine release a thousandfold higher than anything stimulated in our old drug-free world. An emptiness comes from this combination of over-the-top nonnatural sources of reward and the inevitability of habituation; this is because unnaturally strong explosions of synthetic experience and sensation and pleasure evoke unnaturally strong degrees of habituation. This has two consequences. First, soon we barely notice the fleeting whispers of pleasure caused by leaves in autumn, or by the lingering glance of the right person, or by the promise of reward following a difficult, worthy task. And the other consequence is that we eventually habituate to even those artificial deluges of intensity. If we were designed by engineers, as we consumed more, we’d
desire less. But our frequent human tragedy is that the more we consume, the hungrier we get. More and faster and stronger. What was an unexpected pleasure yesterday is what we feel entitled to today, and what won’t be enough tomorrow.
Read the following paragraph and answer the question that follows:
“People who work in law, hotel and food services, and technology were found the most likely to skip breakfast daily, according to a recent study. As for people who do eat breakfast and prefer a savoury type (like an egg), the study found they tend to make more money, be night owls and prefer cats over dogs. If you prefer a sweet breakfast like a donut you tend to be a morning person, like romcoms and are a dog person”.
Which of the following can be BEST inferred based on the above paragraph?
Answer & solution
IT professionals, who eat eggs for breakfast, are more likely to make more money than their counterparts who eat donuts for breakfast.
- B
Lawyers, who eat savory breakfast daily, make more money than those lawyers who have early breakfast daily.
- C
Hoteliers who eat regular breakfast are more likely to make more money than those who watch romcoms regularly.
- D
Among regular breakfast eaters, early risers have more sugar in their breakfast than late risers.
- E
A preference for cats as pets over dogs, usually, is a result of eating eggs for breakfast daily.
While comparing any two cases, the parameters should be comparable as per the given statements. Option B is incorrect as savoury (salty or spicy) breakfast cannot be compared with early breakfast. Similarly, C is wrong as there is no correlation between being making more money and their tendency to eat breakfast regularly. As for option D, in the passage, it is stated that people who prefer sweet breakfast tend to be an early riser and not the other way around, hence incorrect. As far as E is concerned again, there is no mention of preference of pet being a direct result of the choice of food. In option A all the relations are directly mentioned in the passage and hence is the right option.
Hence, option (a).