Amidst the increasing clamour for a discourse on educational improvement, on budgetary allocations and retention rates, there is one crucial question which is insufficiently discussed. And the question is this: what is the purpose of education today? All over the past 100 years, that question has been asked often. In colonial India, the official answer would have been, “to create a cadre of clerks and officials to run the colonial state”; while in a newly decolonized India, the official answer could be, “to create a national sensibility and the national citizen.” Today, I suspect the official answer to the question about the purpose of education would be, “to give people jobs.” Increasingly, the emphasis in education is towards vocationalist and skills development. In a recent private conversation, the education minister of a North Indian state said, “we have a list of jobs. We just don’t have the people skilled enough to do them. We need bio-technologists, fitters, crane operators and lab assistants. But our education does not prepare young people for what we need. We need to change that.” Similarly, we find that the Confederation of Indian Industry is showing increasing interest in school education. The CII recently commissioned a study to look at the challenges and opportunities which face the Indian industry and this is its thesis that in the year 2025, there will be about 40 million jobs worldwide, which need to be filled. India will be one of the few countries in the world to have a labour surplus of the right age group. It therefore believes that we need to think about the kinds of education system necessary to develop skills whereby our children will be best equipped to function in this scenario.
Public consensus on the way to improve educational access is increasingly moving towards a public-private partnership. But we must be concerned about the terrible narrowness of the vision for educational improvement which characterizes our discourse. Education, in this picture, is about the implanting of useful skills– the assumption being that it will ultimately lead to both personal and national enrichment but as Martha Nussbaum writes, education is not only a producer of wealth; it is a producer of citizens. Citizens in a democracy need, above all, freedom of mind– to learn to ask searching questions; to reject shoddy historical arguments; to imagine alternative possibilities from a globalizing, service and market-driven economy; to think what it might be like to be in others’ shoes. Recently, the Israeli novelist, Amos Oz, spoke about the importance of reading novels as what he calls an antidote to hate. He said, “I believe in literature as a bridge between people. I believe curiosity can be a moral quality. I believe imagining the other can be a better person. Part of the tragedy between Jew and Arab is the inability of so many of us, Jews and Arabs, to imagine each other—really imagine each other; the loves, the terrible fears, the anger, the passion. There is too much sameness, too much certainty.”
The skills and thought processes which generate the curiosity, the imagining are associated with the humanities, the arts and history but they are given little or no importance in the NCERT’s new textbooks for History and Political Science, where they are terribly neglected. Our dominant conception of worthwhile education is increasingly technical and mechanical. The thinking processes employed in the social sciences are today seen as quaint, vaguely lefty-intellectual, a kind of quixotic idealism– which has very little to do with the real business of life. It is a strange thought when we see the vision of Gandhi, Tagore and Aurobindo, where the tragedy lies for people who wish to assert a more holistic vision.
The true purpose of education in India as inferred from the passage
Show Hint
- is to create a nationalist sensibility in every citizen
- believes in making people earn more so that they can stand up to the challenges of a globalizing economy
- has been a topic of debate since independence
- is to teach an individual the necessary skills to earn his livelihood
The Correct Option is A
Solution and Explanation
This directly supports Option (A). The others relate more to current criticisms, not the inferred historical purpose. \[ \boxed{\text{(A)}} \]
In the author's perception, our vision for educational improvement is narrow because our system
Show Hint
- gives importance only to vocationalisation and skills development
- believes in making people earn more so that they can stand up to the challenges of a globalizing economy
- does not acknowledge the importance of humanist concepts
- does not support a public-private partnership in improving educational access to everyone
The Correct Option is A
Solution and Explanation
This shows the narrow vision that prioritizes utility over imagination or critical thinking, directly pointing to Option (A). \[ \boxed{\text{(A)}} \]
Amos Oz believes that the world will become a peaceful place, if people
Show Hint
- become less hostile
- become less fanatic
- become less narrow minded
- imagine each other’s realities
The Correct Option is D
Solution and Explanation
He states: “Imagining the other will make you not only a better businessperson or parent, but even a better person.”
This aligns perfectly with Option (D). \[ \boxed{\text{(D)}} \]
The Indian concept of worthwhile education is that which
Show Hint
- I and V
- II and III
- I, III and IV
- II, III and IV
The Correct Option is C
Solution and Explanation
- III: \textit{has a measurable outcome} — implied through focus on employability.
- IV: \textit{kindles curiosity/imagination} — this is what the Indian model lacks, as per author.
Since question asks what the Indian concept is (not what it should be), the right choices are I, III, and IV.
\[ \boxed{\text{(C)}} \]
Which of the following is not an attribute of a good citizen in a democracy?
Show Hint
- Learning to ask searching questions
- Not accepting inadequate reasons from history
- Thinking out of the box
- Learning to negotiate with people
The Correct Option is D
Solution and Explanation
- asking searching questions,
- rejecting shoddy historical reasoning,
- imagining alternatives, etc.
These directly match options (A), (B), and (C).
Option (D) — while a good skill — is not mentioned in the context of a democratic citizen. \[ \boxed{\text{(D)}} \]
Top Questions on Reading Comprehension
- Shown below are letters ‘e’ taken from four popular logos, arranged in a sequence. Which of the options is the correct sequence?
- UCEED - 2026
- English Language Comprehension
- Reading Comprehension
- Shown below are four options, each showing consecutive frames representing the movement of a pendulum of an old-style wall clock for an animation movie. Which is the correct option?
- UCEED - 2026
- English Language Comprehension
- Reading Comprehension
- Acrucial moderating factor in how people experience comparisons is self-esteem. Individuals with high self-esteem are more likely to interpret upward comparison as informative rather than threatening. They are more resilient in the face of others’ success and more likely to believe they can reach their own goals. In contrast, people with low self-esteem are more prone to interpret comparison as judgment, reinforcing negative self-views and triggering feelings of inadequacy.
This dynamic creates a self-reinforcing loop. People with high self-esteem are less vulnerable to upward comparison, which intensifies those doubts. Those with a secure sense of self are more likely to use comparison as a learning tool. The same external stimulus—a colleague’s achievements, a friend’s popularity—can have radically different effects depending on internal stability.
Self-esteem also influences how people choose their comparison targets. Research has found that individuals often engage in “selective comparison,” seeking out those who confirm their existing beliefs about themselves. This can become a subtle form of self-sabotage. Someone who feels unworthy may subconsciously seek out targets that reinforce that sense, perpetuating a narrative of inferiority. One of the most promising antidotes to social comparison is temporal comparison—evaluating oneself not against others, but against one’s own past. This method has been shown to increase motivation and satisfaction, especially when individuals can see concrete progress. Temporal comparison activates the same reward circuits as social comparison but avoids the threat systems associated with social ranking. It also reinforces agency: individuals focus on what they can control and improve rather than what others control. In therapeutic and coaching settings, temporal comparison is used to help clients build self-efficacy and track growth over time.
Moreover, people who focus on self-improvement rather than social dominance are less likely to fall into cycles of envy or self-pity. They can still use others as inspiration, but they do so without attaching their self-worth to the outcome. This is not to say they never compare—but that they focus on learning, rather than judgment. The most skilful approach to comparison may lie in eliminating it, but in reframing it as feedback. When we interpret comparison as information rather than a verdict, we can ask, “What can I learn from this?” This shift turns comparison into a growth tool. Teachers mentor their students, not as rivals. Psychologists emphasize that the key variable here is mindset.
A fixed mindset sees comparison as a threat. If someone else is better, it means we are worse. A growth mindset sees comparison as a map. If someone else has reached a certain level, it means the path exists. This reframing is not just a cognitive trick. It changes the emotional tone of comparison, making it more likely to inspire than to wound. Reframing also requires emotional regulation—the ability to notice an initial pang of envy or shame without reacting impulsively. With practice, individuals can learn to pause, reflect, and reinterpret their emotional responses. Over time, this builds resilience and self-trust, allowing comparison to become a learning tool rather than a cage.- XAT - 2026
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
When people who are talking don’t share the same culture, knowledge, values, and assumptions, mutual understanding can be especially difficult. Such understanding is possible through the negotiation of meaning. To negotiate meaning with someone, you have to become aware of and respect both the differences in your backgrounds and when these differences are important. You need enough diversity of cultural and personal experience to be aware that divergent world views exist and what they might be like. You also need the flexibility in world view, and a generous tolerance for mistakes, as well as a talent for finding the right metaphor to communicate the relevant parts of unshared experiences or to highlight the shared experiences while demphasizing the others. Metaphorical imagination is a crucial skill in creating rapport and in communicating the nature of unshared experience. This skill consists, in large measure, of the ability to bend your world view and adjust the way you categorize your experiences. Problems of mutual understanding are not exotic; they arise in all extended conversations where understanding is important.
When it really counts, meaning is almost never communicated according to the CONDUIT metaphor, that is, where one person transmits a fixed, clear proposition to another by means of expressions in a common language, where both parties have all the relevant common knowledge, assumptions, values, etc. When the chips are down, meaning is negotiated: you slowly figure out what you have in common, what it is safe to talk about, how you can communicate unshared experience or create a shared vision. With enough flexibility in bending your world view and with luck and charity, you may achieve some mutual understanding.
Communication theories based on the CONDUIT metaphor turn from the pathetic to the evil when they are applied indiscriminately on a large scale, say, in government surveillance or computerized files. There, what is most crucial for real understanding is almost never included, and it is assumed that the words in the file have meaning in themselves—disembodied, objective, understandable meaning. When a society lives by the CONDUITmetaphor on a large scale, misunderstanding, persecution, and much worse are the likely products.- XAT - 2026
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
Later, I realized that reviewing the history of nuclear physics served another purpose as well: It gave the lie to the naive belief that the physicists could have come together when nuclear fission was discovered (in Nazi Germany!) and agreed to keep the discovery a secret, thereby sparing humanity such a burden. No. Given the development of nuclear physics up to 1938, development that physicists throughout the world pursued in all innocence of any intention of finding the engine of a new weapon of mass destruction—only one of them, the remarkable Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard, took that possibility seriously—the discovery of nuclear fission was inevitable. To stop it, you would have had to stop physics. If German scientists hadn’t made the discovery when they did, French, American, Russian, Italian, or Danish scientists would have done so, almost certainly within days or weeks. They were all working at the same cutting edge, trying to understand the strange results of a simple experiment bombarding uranium with neutrons. Here was no Faustian bargain, as movie directors and other naifs still find it intellectually challenging to imagine. Here was no evil machinery that the noble scientists might hide from the problems and the generals. To the contrary, there was a high insight into how the world works, an energetic reaction, older than the earth, that science had finally devised the instruments and arrangements to coart forth. “Make it seem inevitable,” Louis Pasteur used to advise his students when they prepared to write up their discoveries. But it was. To wish that it might have been ignored or suppressed is barbarous. “Knowledge,” Niels Bohr once noted, “is itself the basis for civilization.” You cannot have the one without the other; the one depends upon the other. Nor can you have only benevolent knowledge; the scientific method doesn’t filter for benevolence. Knowledge has consequences, not always intended, not always comfortable, but always welcome. The earth revolves around the sun, not the sun around the earth. “It is a profound and necessary truth,” Robert Oppenheimer would say, “that the deep things in science are not found because they are useful; they are found because it was possible to find them.”
...Bohr proposed once that the goal of science is not universal truth. Rather, he argued, the modest but relentless goal of science is “the gradual removal of prejudices.” The discovery that the earth revolves around the sun has gradually removed the prejudice that the earth is the center of the universe. The discovery of microbes is gradually removing the prejudice that disease is a punishment from God. The discovery of evolution is gradually removing the prejudice that Homo sapiens is a separate and special creation.- XAT - 2026
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
Questions Asked in CAT exam
- The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
In the dynamic realm of creativity, artists often find themselves at the crossroads between drawing inspiration from diverse cultures and inadvertently crossing into the territory of cultural appropriation. Inspiration is the lifeblood of creativity, driving artists to create works that resonate across borders. In a globalized era of the modern world, artists draw from a vast array of cultural influences. When approached respectfully, inspiration becomes a bridge, fostering understanding and appreciation of cultural diversity. However, the line between inspiration and cultural appropriation can be thin and easily blurred.
Cultural appropriation occurs when elements from a particular culture are borrowed without proper understanding, respect, or acknowledgment. This leads to the commodification of sacred symbols, the reinforcement of stereotypes, and the erasure of the cultural context from which these elements originated. It is essential to recognize that the impact of cultural appropriation extends beyond the realm of artistic expression, influencing societal perceptions and perpetuating power imbalances.- CAT - 2025
- Para Summary
- The number of distinct integers $n$ for which $\log_{\left(\frac14\right)}(n^2 - 7n + 11)>0$ is:
- CAT - 2025
- Linear Inequalities
- In the set of consecutive odd numbers $\{1, 3, 5, \ldots, 57\}$, there is a number $k$ such that the sum of all the elements less than $k$ is equal to the sum of all the elements greater than $k$. Then, $k$ equals?
- CAT - 2025
- Number Systems
- The number of distinct pairs of integers $(x, y)$ satisfying the inequalities $x>y \ge 3$ and $x + y<14$ is:
- CAT - 2025
- Number Systems
For any natural number $k$, let $a_k = 3^k$. The smallest natural number $m$ for which \[ (a_1)^1 \times (a_2)^2 \times \dots \times (a_{20})^{20} \;<\; a_{21} \times a_{22} \times \dots \times a_{20+m} \] is:
- CAT - 2025
- Linear Inequalities