After successfully completing the CAT 2016 sprint series and the SNAP 2016 sprint series, we are back with the XAT 2017 sprint preparation series – Verbal 10 to boost your prep. This series will consist of 10 sets of questions from past year XAT papers, leading to XAT 2017 and covered almost all the question types that you needed to know come the 8th of January.
XAT 2017 sprint preparation series – Verbal 10
Analyse the following passage and provide appropriate answers for the questions 1 through 4 that follow.
Popper claimed, scientific beliefs are universal in character, and have to be so if they are to serve us in explanation and prediction. For the universality of a scientific belief implies that, no matter how many instances we have found positive, there will always be an indefinite number of unexamined instances which may or may not also be positive. We have no good reason for supposing that any of these unexamined instances will be positive, or will be negative, so we must refrain from drawing any conclusions. On the other hand, a single negative instance is sufficient to prove that the belief is false, for such an instance is logically incompatible with the universal truth of the belief. Provided, therefore, that the instance is accepted as negative we must conclude that the scientific belief is false. In short, we can sometimes deduce that a universal scientific belief is false but we can never induce that a universal scientific belief is true.
It is sometimes argued that this ‘asymmetry’ between verification and falsification is not nearly as pronounced as Popper declared it to be. Thus, there is no inconsistency in holding that a universal scientific belief is false despite any number of positive instances; and there is no inconsistency either in holding that a universal scientific belief is true despite the evidence of a negative instance. For the belief that an instance is negative is itself a scientific belief and may be falsified by experimental evidence which we accept and which is inconsistent with it. When, for example, we draw a right-angled triangle on the surface of a sphere using parts of three great circles for its sides, and discover that for this triangle Pythagoras’ Theorem does not hold, we may decide that this apparently negative instance is not really negative because it is not a genuine instance at all. Triangles drawn on the surfaces of spheres are not the sort of triangles which fall within the scope of Pythagoras’ Theorem. Falsification, that is to say, is no more capable of yielding conclusive rejections of scientific belief than verification is of yielding conclusive acceptances of scientific beliefs. The asymmetry between falsification and verification, therefore, has less logical significance than Popper supposed.
We should, though, resist this reasoning. Falsifications may not be conclusive, for the acceptances on which rejections are based are always provisional acceptances. But, nevertheless, it remains the case that, in falsification, if we accept falsifying claims then, to remain consistent, we must reject falsified claims. On the other hand, although verifications are also not conclusive, our acceptance or rejection of verifying instances has no implications concerning the acceptance or rejection of verified claims. Falsifying claims sometimes give us a good reason for rejecting a scientific belief, namely when the claims are accepted. But verifying claims, even when accepted, give us no good and appropriate reason for accepting any scientific belief, because any such reason would have to be inductive to be appropriate and there are no good inductive reasons.
1.According to Popper, the statement “Scientific beliefs are universal in character” implies that
A.Positive instances of scientific belief imply that it is universal in character
B.There are equal numbers of negative and positive instances of a universal scientific belief
C.If there are negative and positive instances of a scientific belief then it cannot be universal
D.We can only deduce that a scientific belief is false but cannot induce that it is true
E.We can only induce that a scientific belief is false but cannot induce that it is true
2.The statement, “this ‘asymmetry’ between verification and falsification is not nearly as pronounced as Popper declared it to be”, implies that
A.Falsification is better than verification in universal acceptance beliefs
B.Verification is better than falsification in universal acceptance of scientific beliefs
C.Both falsification and verification together can result in universal acceptance of scientific beliefs
D.Capability of falsification in accepting of scientific beliefs is not better than that of verification in rejection of scientific beliefs
E.Capability of falsification in rejection of scientific beliefs is not always better than that of verification in acceptance of scientific beliefs
3.With which of the following statements, would the author agree most?
A.Verification is better than falsification in establishing the claims
B.Falsification and verification are equally good in establishing the claims
C.Verification and falsification are equally bad in establishing the claims
D.Falsification is better than verification in disproving the claims
E.Verification is better than falsification in disproving the claims
4.Which of the following would be the most appropriate conclusion?
A.Falsification gives us an appropriate reason for rejecting a scientific belief
B.Falsification gives us all the reasons for accepting a claim
C.Verification gives us a reason for rejecting a claim
D.Verification gives us an appropriate reason for accepting a scientific belief
E.Verification gives us an appropriate reason for rejecting a scientific belief
Analyse the following passage and provide appropriate answers for the questions 5 through 9 that follow.
Soros, we must note, has never been a champion of free market capitalism. He has followed for nearly all his public life the political ideas of the late Sir Karl Popper who laid out a rather jumbled case for what he dubbed “the open society” in his The Open Society and Its Enemies (1953). Such a society is what we ordinarily call the pragmatic system in which politicians get involved in people’s lives but without any heavy theoretical machinery to guide them, simply as the ad hoc parental authorities who are believed to be needed to keep us all on the straight and narrow. Popper was at one time a Marxist socialist but became disillusioned with that idea because he came to believe that systematic ideas do not work in any area of human concern.
The Popperian open society Soros promotes is characterized by a very general policy of having no firm principles, not even those needed for it to have some constancy and integrity. This makes the open society a rather wobbly idea, since even what Popper himself regarded as central to all human thinking, critical rationalism, may be undermined by the openness of the open society since its main target is negative: avoid dogmatic thinking, and avoid anything that even comes close to a set of unbreachable principles. No, the open society is open to anything at all, at least for experimental purposes. No holds are barred, which, if you think about it, undermines even that very idea and becomes unworkable.
Accordingly, in a society Soros regards suited to human community living, the state can manipulate many aspects of human life, including, of course, the economic behavior of individuals and firms. It can control the money supply, impose wage and price controls, dabble in demand or supply-side economics, and do nearly everything a central planning board might – provided it does not settle into any one policy firmly, unbendingly. That is the gist of Soros’s Popperian politics.
Soros’ distrusts capitalism in particular, because of the alleged inadequacy of neoclassical economics, the technical economic underpinnings of capitalist thinking offered up in many university economics departments. He, like many others outside and even inside the economics discipline, finds the arid reductionism of this social science false to the facts, and rightly so. But the defense of capitalist free markets does not rest on this position.
Neo-classical thinking depends in large part on the 18th- and 19th-century belief that human society operates according to laws, not unlike those that govern the physical universe. Most of social science embraced that faith, so economics isn’t unusual in its loyalty to classical mechanics. Nor do all economists take the deterministic lawfulness of economic science literally – some understand that the laws begin to operate only once people embark upon economic pursuits. Outside their commercial ventures, people can follow different principles and priorities, even if it is undeniable that most of their endeavors have economic features. Yet, it would be foolish to construe religion or romance or even scientific inquiry as solely explicable by reference to the laws of economics.
In his criticism of neo-classical economic science, then, George Soros has a point: the discipline is too dependent on Newtonian physics as the model of science. As a result, the predictions of economists who look at markets as if they were machines need to be taken with a grain of salt. Some – for example the school of Austrian economists – have made exactly that point against the neo-classical.
Soros draws a mistaken inference: if one defense of the market is flawed, the market lacks defense.This is wrong. If it is true that from A we can infer B, it does not prove that B can only be inferred from A; C or Z, too, might be a reason for B.
5.As per the paragraph, author believes that
A.Free market capitalism can be explained using neo-classical economics
B.Neo-classical economics does not address the idea of free-market system
C.Free market capitalism and open society are not different from each other
D.Free market capitalism and laissez-faire are not different from each other
E.Technical underpinning of neo-classical economics can address the idea of laissez-faire.
6.As per the paragraph, which of the following is true?
A.Economic benefits of open society and laissez-faire are same
B.Soros’ open society means no interference from the government
C.Free market capitalism means no interference from the government
D.Laws of economics are not capable of explaining the human nature completely
E.Laws of economics capture the human nature completely as most of the human endeavors are economic in nature
7.According to the author,
A.George Soros believes in regulated economies
B.George Soros does not believe in government intervention in state policies
C.George Soros believes in state intervention provided it does not remain static
D.George Soros believes that laissez-faire economics perform better than free-market economies.
E.George Soros believes that free-market economies perform better than controlled economies
8.According to the author which of the following statement could be true about critical rationalism
A.Ideas of critical rationalism underpin the foundation of neo-classical economics
B.Ideas of critical rationalism underpin the foundation of laissez-faire.
C.Ideas of critical rationalism underpin the foundation of open society
D.Ideas of critical rationalism underpin the foundation of Newtonian physics
E.None of the above
9.The word deterministic (used in forth line of fifth paragraph),in the above passage refers to:
A.An effect can only be caused by a single event
B.An effect may be produced by many causes
C.An effect cannot be produced by a cause
D.Cause(s) of an effect can always be known
E.Economics does not follow cause and effect relationship
10.Peter has suggested to me that the_________ of highly systematic and __________ planning techniques may have led to a substantial_________ in firms’ notions of what is likely to happen in the future, and thus to a ____________ in the incidence of mistakes,especially ‘on the part of the _______modern corporations.
A.progressive development, exact, decline, decrease, tiny
B.progress deterioration, exact, increase, decrease, tiny
C.progressive development, precise, improvement, reduction, large
D.progressive development, precise, increase, decrease, large
E.gradual growth, exact, increase, decline, large
Answers –
1.E
2.E
3.D
4.A
5.B
6.D
7.C
8.E
9.D
10.C
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