After successfully completing the CAT 2016 sprint series and the SNAP 2016 sprint series, we are back with the XAT 2017 sprint preparation series – Decision making 5 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 – Decision making 5
Answer questions nos. 1 – 3 based on the case given below.
Ethical – a person is called unethical, when he deviates from principles. The principles and their use is
often guided by two definitions:
Moral: society’s code for individual survival
Ethics: An individual’s code for society survival
Naresh was a small time civil contractor in a small city. His major clients were the residents who wanted ad-hoc work like painting, building extensions to be done. His just prices had made him a preferred contractor for most of the clients who preferred him over other civil contractors. Always he followed the principle that client had to be kept happy – only by doing so it would be a win-win situation for both. However due to the unpredictability of such orders from residents, Naresh used to be idle for substantial part of the year. As a consequence, he could not expand his business.
His two children were growing up and his existing business could not support their expenses. The medical expense of his elderly parents was another drain on his resources. The constant rise of prices in medical care and medicines was another issue. For Naresh, family’s concern was predominant. Naresh was, therefore, under pressure to expand his business. He was the sole earning member of his family, and he had to ensure their well being. He thought that by expanding his business, not only would he be able to care for his family in a better way, as well as offer employment to more number of masons and labourers. That would benefit their families as well. Naresh drew the boundary of his society to include himself, his family members, his employees and their family members.
For expansion, the only option in the city was to enlist as a contractor for government work. Before deciding, he sought advice from another contractor, Srikumar, who had been working on government projects for a long period of time. Srikumar followed the principle of always helping others, because he believed that he would be helped back in return some day. Srikumar had just one advice “The work is given to those who will win the bidding process and at the same time will give the maximum bribe.
Prices quoted for work have to include bribes, else the bills will not get cleared and the supervisors will find multiple faults with the execution of work. This ensures survival and prosperity for contractors”. When asked about other contractors, Srikumar said “The government contractors are like a microsociety in themselves, almost like a brotherhood. Within that, they are highly competitive; however towards any external threat they are united to ensure no harm happens to any of their members”.
1. Naresh decided to work as a government contractor. Following Srikumar’s advice, he inflated the prices so that he could pay the bribes out the bills received.
A. Naresh is now totally unethical.
B. Naresh cannot be called totally ethical.
C. Naresh can be called ethical when it suits him.
D. Naresh is ethical to some extent.
E. Naresh is being totally ethical.
2. A new supervisor had joined a government department where both Naresh and Srikumar were bidding for work. During the bidding process for a particular project, in an open meeting with all contractors and officers from the department, he produced a document which had the rates at which Naresh had worked for private clients for similar building related work. He accused Naresh and Srikumar of over-pricing for government work and threatened to disqualify them from the bidding process, if the rates are not brought down. Faced with that situation, Naresh gave a written reply that “I use materials of inferior quality for private work, and that is the reason for price difference”. Srikumar supported Naresh in the meeting by saying that he had seen Naresh’s work and he agreed. In this situation, it can be concluded that:
A. both Naresh and Srikumar are unethical.
B. Naresh is unethical while Srikumar is not.
C. both Naresh and Srikumar are ethical.
D. Naresh is ethical to a large extent, but no conclusion can be made about Srikumar.
E. Srikumar is unethical, but no conclusion can be made about Naresh.
3. Lankawala, another contractor, when faced with the new supervisor’s demand to reduce prices for government work, asked him to guarantee that no bribes would be taken, and only then prices would be reduced. This was said in front of everyone. At this the supervisor forced Lankawala out of the meeting and threatened to black-list him. Lankawala did not say anything and walked away. Blacklisting of a contractor by one government department implied that
Lankawala would not be able to participate in any government departments’ works. In late evening, the city was abuzz with the news that the supervisor’s dead body was seen on the railway tracks. In the investigations that followed, no one who attended the meeting recounted the happenings in the meeting to the police. Getting involved in murder cases could lead to unpredictable outcomes such as becoming the potential suspect, or an accessory to the crime. Furthermore, cases could drag on for years, and one would have to appear in court as witnesses in response to court’s summons. This, for a contractor, was a serious threat to his business due to the disruptions created. However, Naresh wanted to speak out but was pressurized by Srikumar and other contractors not to, and as a result he did not. Due to this, the case was closed unresolved with no one found guilty. In this situation, it can be concluded that:
A. Srikumar is immoral, but ethical, while Naresh is not unethical.
B. Naresh is ethical and moral, while other contractors are immoral and unethical.
C. Naresh, Srikumar and other contractors are both immoral and unethical.
D. Other contractors are moral, and they prevented Naresh from being immoral.
E. Other contractors are unethical, but no conclusion can be made about Naresh.
Direction for question 4 to 7: Read the following caselet and choose the best alternative.
The BIG and Colourful Company
You are running “BIG and Colourful (BnC)” company that sells book to customers through three retail formats:
a. You can buy books from bookstores,
b. You can buy books from supermarket,
c. You can order books over the Internet (Online)
Your manager has an interesting way of classifying expenses: some of the expenses are classified in terms of size: Big, Small and Medium; and others are classified in terms of the colors, Red, Yellow, Green and Violet. The company has a history of categorizing overall costs into initial costs and additional costs. Additional costs are equal to the sum of Big, Small and Medium expenses There are two types of margin, contribution(sales minis initial costs) and profit (contribution minus additional costs). Given below is the data about sales and costs of BnC:
Each of the Big, Small and Medium cost is categorized by the manager into Red, Yellow, Green and Violet costs. Breakdown of the additional costs under these headings is shown in the table below:
Red, Yellow, Green and Violet costs are allocated to different retail formats. These costs are apportioned in the ratio of number of units consumed by each retail format. The number of units consumed by each retail format is given in the table below:
4. Statement I:
Online store accounted for 50% of the sales at BnC and the ratio of supermarket sales and book store sales is 1 : 2
Statement II:
Initial Cost is allocated in the ratio of sales.
If you want to calculate the profit/loss from the different retail formats, then
A. Statement I alone is sufficient to calculate the profit/loss.
B. Statement II alone is sufficient to calculate the profit/loss.
C. Both statements I and II are required to calculate the profit/loss.
D. Either of the two statements is sufficient to calculate the profit/loss.
E. Neither Statement I nor Statement II is sufficient to calculate the profit/loss.
Based on your answer to the above question, answer question nos. 5 – 7
5. What is the profit/loss from “online” sales?
A. 0
B. -310
C. +20
D. +450
E. Cannot be determined from given information
6. Which retail format is least profit making for BnC
A. Online
B. Supermarket
C. Book Store
D. All formats are loss making.
E. All formats are profit making.
7. Which retail format gives the highest profit for BnC?
A. Book Store
B. Supermarket
C. Online
D. All are equally profitable.
E. Cannot be determined from given information
Direction for question 8 to 9: Read the following caselet and choose the best alternative.
A teacher wanted to administer a multiple choice (each question having six choices) based quiz of high difficulty levels to a class of sixty students. The quiz had sixty questions. The probability of selecting the correct answer for a good student and a brilliant student was 0.2 and 0.25 respectively. The poor students had no learning advantage. The teacher did not want students to cheat but does not have time and resources to monitor. All students were seated serially in 10 rows and 6 columns.
8. Is it possible for teacher to detect cheating without monitoring? Choose the statement that best describe your opinion.
A. It is not at all possible; teacher will have to introduced technology if there is no human support
B. It is always possible; but teacher has to calculate exact answer
C. It is possible when many students sitting next to each other have the same incorrect answers for multiple questions. However, there can be a small error in judgment.
D. It is possible when many students sitting next to each other have a same correct answers for multiple questions. However, there can be a small error in judgment.
E. It is possible only for poor students but not for good and brilliant students. However, there can be a smaller error in judgment.
9. Three good students were sitting next to each other. What is the probability of them having the same incorrect choice for four consecutive questions?
A. 256/390625
B. 256/3125
C. 4/3125
D. 1/3125
E. Cannot be calculated
10. Students from four sections of a class accompanied by respective class teachers planned to go for a field trip. There were nineteen people in all. However, on the scheduled day one of the four teachers and few students could not join the rest.
Given below are some statement about the group of people who ultimately left for the trip.
I. Section A had the largest contingent.
II. Section B had fewer students than Section A
III. Section C’s contingent was smaller than Section B.
IV. Section D had the smallest contingent
V. The product of the number of the students from each section is a multiple of 10.
VI. The number of students from section C is more than 2
VII. The product of the number of students from each section is a multiple of 24.
VIII. The largest contingent has more than 4 students.
IX. Each section contributed different number of students
The statement that taken together can give us the exact number of students from each section:
A. I, II, III, IV, VI
B. I, VI, VIII, IX
C. I, II, III, IV, V, VI
D. I, II, III, IV, VI, VII
E. I, IV, VI, VII, IX
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Solutions:
1. Option e
2. Option d
3. Option a
4. Option c
5. Option d
6. Option b
7. Option a
8. Option c
9. Option e
10. Option c
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You can follow the entire sprint series here: XAT 2017 Sprint Preparation Series by Learningroots
