The ways by which you may get money almost without exception lead downwards. To have done anything by which you earned money merely is to have been truly idle or worse. If the laborer gets no more than the wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself. If you would get money as a writer or lecturer, you must be popular, which is to go down perpendicularly. Those services which the community will most readily pay for, it is most disagreeable to render. You are paid for being something less than a man. The State does not commonly reward a genius any more wisely. Even the poet laureate would rather not have to celebrate the accidents of royalty. He must be bribed with a pipe of wine; and perhaps another poet is called away from his muse to gauge that very pipe. The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get “a good job,” but to perform well a certain work; and even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel that they were working for low ends, for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.
The community has no bribe that will tempt a wise man. You may raise money enough to tunnel a mountain, but you cannot raise money enough to hire a man who is minding his own business. An efficient and valuable man does what he can, whether the community pays him for it or not. The inefficient offer their inefficiency to the highest bidder, and are forever expecting to be put into office. One would suppose that they were rarely disappointed. God gave the righteous man a certificate entitling him to food and raiment, but the unrighteous man found a facsimile of the same in God’s coffers, and appropriated it, and obtained food and raiment like the former. It is one of the most extensive systems of counterfeiting that the world has seen. I did not know that mankind was suffering for want of gold. I have seen a little of it. I know that it is very malleable, but not so malleable as wit. A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom.
Which of the following would the author disagree most with?
Show Hint
- Setting up a factory in a rural area
- Advertising for tooth paste
- Studying in a business school
- Betting in a casino
- Working for an investment bank
The Correct Option is D
Solution and Explanation
From the earlier passage, the author stressed rationality in economic behavior. He argued that even seemingly irrational activities (like advertising-driven choices) can be explained rationally when seen as signals of quality or reputation.
Step 2: Examine the options.
(A) Setting up a factory in a rural area — productive economic activity, not something the author would reject.
(B) Advertising for toothpaste — although advertising may appear irrational, the author explained it can still be rational if interpreted as information.
(C) Studying in a business school — aligned with rational professional/economic advancement.
(E) Working for an investment bank — again consistent with rational market-oriented behavior.
(D) Betting in a casino — this is purely chance-based, non-productive, and cannot be rationalized in the author’s economic framework. He would disagree most strongly with this.
Step 3: Conclusion.
The author would most disagree with betting in a casino, as it lacks the rational or informational justification found in the other activities.
\[ \boxed{\text{Betting in a casino}} \]
Which of the following could be a good title for the above passage?
Show Hint
- Money and Work
- God Rush
- Work is Worship
- In Search for God
- God is Gold
The Correct Option is A
Solution and Explanation
From the earlier questions, we know that the passage revolves around the relationship between human work, rationality, economics, and the pursuit of money. The author highlights how economic behavior is shaped by rational motivations and how activities that seem irrational (like advertising) can still serve rational purposes within the economic system.
Step 2: Eliminate options inconsistent with the theme.
(B) God Rush — irrelevant, as the passage is not about religion or divine pursuits.
(C) Work is Worship — while it emphasizes work, it shifts toward spirituality rather than the economic analysis presented in the passage.
(D) In Search for God — again, unrelated to economics.
(E) God is Gold — metaphorical, but misleading, as the passage does not equate money with divinity.
Step 3: Select the most relevant option.
(A) Money and Work — directly reflects the passage’s theme: the link between human labor and the pursuit of money in an economic framework. It captures both the practical and theoretical essence of the discussion.
\[ \boxed{\text{Money and Work}} \]
The author of the passage went on to say:
“We are provincial, because we do not find at home our standards; because we do not worship truth, but the reflection of truth; because we are warped and narrowed by an exclusive devotion to trade and commerce and manufactures and agriculture and the like, which are but means, and not the end.”
Which of the following, as per author, could have been the end (last words in the lines abov(E)?
Show Hint
- Economic growth of society
- Realization of self
- Happy family life
- Strong and powerful nation
- Distribution of wealth
The Correct Option is B
Solution and Explanation
The author criticizes society for being overly devoted to trade, commerce, agriculture, and material pursuits. He calls these activities means, not the end. This shows the author’s dissatisfaction with measuring progress only in economic or material terms.
Step 2: Identify what the true ‘end’ should be.
Since the passage says that devotion to trade and wealth narrows and warps human life, the “end” must be something deeper, higher, and more meaningful than mere economics. It should relate to inner growth, truth, or self-realization.
Step 3: Eliminate incorrect options.
(A) Economic growth of society — this is exactly what the author criticizes as “means,” not the “end.”
(C) Happy family life — while valuable, it is not presented as the ultimate philosophical end in the author’s statement.
(D) Strong and powerful nation — this again reflects external/material progress, not inner realization.
(E) Distribution of wealth — this too is economic in nature, not the deeper truth the author is referring to.
Step 4: Choose the correct option.
(B) Realization of self — this perfectly aligns with the author’s tone, as he emphasizes truth and criticizes worshipping materialism. The true “end” is spiritual or self-realization, not material success.
\[ \boxed{\text{Realization of self}} \]
Top Questions on Reading Comprehension
No one argues that the rich should be rich because they were born to wealthy parents. Critics of inequality may complain that those who would abolish inheritance taxes, say, are implicitly endorsing hereditary privilege. But no one defends hereditary privilege outright or disputes the principle that careers should be open to talents.
Most of our debates about access to jobs, education, and public o ce proceed from the premise of equal opportunity. Our disagreements are less about the principle itself than about what it requires. For example, critics of a rmative action in hiring and college admissions argue that such policies are inconsistent with equality of opportunity, because they judge applicants on factors other than merit. Defenders of a rmative action reply that such policies are necessary to make equality of opportunity a reality for members of groups that have suffered discrimination or disadvantage.
At the level of principle at least, and political rhetoric, meritocracy has won the day. In democracies throughout the world, politicians of the center-left and center-right claim that their policies are the ones that will enable all citizens, whatever their race or ethnicity, gender or class, to compete on equal terms and to rise as far as their efforts and talents will take them. When people complain about meritocracy, the complaint is usually not about the ideal but about our failure to live up to it: The wealthy and powerful have rigged the system to perpetuate their privilege; the professional classes have gured out how to pass their advantages on to their children, converting the meritocracy into a hereditary aristocracy; colleges that claim to select students on merit give an edge to the sons and daughters of the wealthy and the well-connected. According to this complaint, meritocracy is a myth, a distant promise yet to be redeemed.- XAT - 2025
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
Look how you turned on
the ceiling fan—it’s too high,
see how it shakes and trembles.
You walk into this room
with your hot ideas
and the ceiling fan has to work harder
to cool down the room
for us. You walk into this room
with your crazy eyes
and the ceiling fan
wants to y loose. It dreams
of becoming a spider lily.- XAT - 2025
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
Recently, a team of social scientists launched an experiment to test that hypothesis. They recruited 1,500 entrepreneurs in West Africa—a mix of women and men in their 30s, 40s, and 50s—who were running small startups in manufacturing, service, and commerce. They randomly assigned the founders to one of three groups. One was a control group: they went about their business as usual. The other two were training groups: they spent a week learning new concepts, analyzing them in case studies of other entrepreneurs, and applying them to their own startups through role-play and re section exercises. What differed was whether the training focused on cognitive skills or character skills. In cognitive skills training, the founders took an accredited business course created by the International Finance Corporation. They studied nance, accounting, HR, marketing, and pricing, and practiced using what they learned to solve challenges and seize opportunities. In character skills training, the founders attended a class designed by psychologists to teach personal initiative. They studied proactivity, discipline, and determination, and practiced putting those qualities into action. Character skills training had a dramatic impact. After founders had spent merely ve days working on these skills, their rms’ pro ts grew by an average of 30 percent over the next two years. That was nearly triple the bene t of training in cognitive skills. Finance and marketing knowledge might have equipped founders to capitalize on opportunities, but studying proactivity and discipline enabled them to generate opportunities. They learned to anticipate market changes rather than react to them. They developed more creative ideas and introduced more new products. When they encountered nancial obstacles, instead of giving up, they were more resilient and resourceful in seeking loans. Along with demonstrating that character skills can propel us to achieve greater things, this evidence reveals that it’s never too late to build them … Character doesn’t set like plaster—it retains its plasticity. Character is often confused with personality, but they’re not the same. Personality is your predisposition—your basic instincts for how to think, feel, and act. Character is your capacity to prioritize your values over your instincts. Knowing your principles doesn’t necessarily mean you know how to practice them, particularly under stress or pressure. It’s easy to be proactive and determined when things are going well. The true test of character is whether you manage to stand by those values when the deck is stacked against you. If personality is how you respond on a typical day, character is how you show up on a hard day. Personality is not your destiny—it’s your tendency. Character skills enable you to transcend that tendency to be true to your principles. It’s not about the traits you have—it’s what you decide to do with them. Wherever you are today, there’s no reason why you can’t grow your character skills starting now.
- XAT - 2025
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
This uidity and situational dependence is uniquely human. In other species, in-group/outgroup distinctions re ect degrees of biological relatedness, or what evolutionary biologists call “kin selection.” Rodents distinguish between a sibling, a cousin, and a stranger by smell—xed, genetically determined pheromonal signatures—and adapt their cooperation accordingly. Those murderous groups of chimps are largely made up of brothers or cousins who grew up together and predominantly harm outsiders. Humans are plenty capable of kin-selective violence themselves, yet human group mentality is often utterly independent of such instinctual familial bonds. Most modern human societies rely instead on cultural kin selection, a process allowing people to feel closely related to what are, in a biological sense, total strangers. Often, this requires a highly active process of inculcation, with its attendant rituals and vocabularies. Consider military drills producing “bands of brothers,” unrelated college freshmen becoming sorority “sisters,” or the bygone value of welcoming immigrants into “the American family.” This malleable, rather than genetically xed, path of identity formation also drives people to adopt arbitrary markers that enable them to spot their cultural kin in an ocean of strangers—hence the importance various communities attach to ags, dress, or facial hair. The hipster beard, the turban, and the “Make America Great Again” hat all fulfill this role by sending strong signals of tribal belonging. Moreover, these cultural communities are arbitrary when compared to the relatively axed logic of biological kin selection. Few things show this arbitrariness better than the experience of immigrant families, where the randomness of a visa lottery can radically reshu e a child’s education, career opportunities, and cultural predilections. Had my grandparents and father missed the train out of Moscow that they instead barely made, maybe I’d be a chain smoking Russian academic rather than a Birkenstock-wearing American one, moved to tears by the heroism during the Battle of Stalingrad rather than that at Pearl Harbor. Scaled up from the level of individual family histories, our big-picture group identities—the national identities and cultural principles that structure our lives— are just as arbitrary and subject to the vagaries of history.
- XAT - 2025
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
- Work, for many on the career track, is greedy. The individual who puts in overtime, weekend time, or evening time will earn a lot more—so much more that, even on an hourly basis, the person is earning more.…The greediness of work means that couples with children or other care responsibilities would gain by doing a bit of specialization. This specialization doesn’t mean catapulting back to the world of Leave It to Beaver. Women will still pursue demanding careers. But one member of the couple will be on call at home, ready to leave the o ce or workplace at a moment’s notice. That person will have a position with considerable exibility and will ordinarily not be expected to answer an e-mail or a call at ten p.m. That parent will not have to cancel an appearance at soccer practice for an M \& A. The other parent, however, will be on call at work and do just the opposite. The potential impact on promotion, advancement, and earnings is obvious. The work of professionals and managers has always been greedy. Lawyers have always burned the midnight oil. Academics have always been judged for their cerebral output and are expected not to turn their brains off in the evenings. Most doctors and veterinarians were once on call 24/7. The value of greedy jobs has greatly increased with rising income inequality, which has soared since the early 1980s. Earnings at the very upper end of the income distribution have ballooned. The worker who jumps the highest gets an ever-bigger reward. The jobs with the greatest demands for long hours and the least exibility have paid disproportionately more, while earnings in other employments have stagnated. Thus, positions that have been more di cult for women to enter in the rst place, such as those in nance, are precisely the ones that have seen the greatest increases in income in the last several decades. The private equity associate who sees the deal through from beginning to end, who did the di cult modeling, and who went to every meeting and late-night dinner, will have maximum chance for a big bonus and the sought-after promotion. Rising inequality in earnings may be one important reason why the gender pay gap among college graduates has remained at in the last several decades, despite improvements in women’s credentials and positions. It may be the reason why the gender earnings gap for college graduates became larger than that between men and women in the entire population in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Women have been swimming upstream, holding their own but going against a strong current of endemic income inequality. Greedy work also means that couple equity has been, and will continue to be, jettisoned for increased family income. And when couple equity is thrown out the window, gender equality generally goes with it, except among same-sex unions. Gender norms that we have inherited get reinforced in a host of ways to allot more of the childcare responsibility to mothers, and more of the family care to grown daughters. 68. Which of the following statements CANNOT be inferred from the passage?
- XAT - 2025
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
Questions Asked in XAT exam
Match the following renowned Indian personalities with their respective awards.
Names Award 1. Shri Ratan Naval Tata A. Dadasaheb Phalke Award 2. Manmohan Singh B. Grammy Awards 3. Zakir Hussain C. Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy 4. Shyam Benegal D. World Statesman Award - XAT - 2025
- Famous personalities and their contributions
Match the following authors with their respective works.
Authors Books 1. Andy Weir A. Dune 2. Cixin Liu B. The Time Machine 3. Stephen Hawking C. The Brief History of Time 4. HG Wells D. The Martian 5. Frank Herbert E. The Three Body Problem - XAT - 2025
- Books and Authors
Match the following airlines with the countries where they are headquartered.
Airlines Countries 1. AirAsia A. Singapore 2. AZAL B. South Korea 3. Jeju Air C. Azerbaijan 4. Indigo D. India 5. Tigerair E. Malaysia - XAT - 2025
- Business and Economy
The diagram below represents a road network connecting five towns, namely Meeren, Lannisport, Winterfell, Oldtown, and Gulltown. The maximum speed limits along any stretch of road are as shown in the diagram. The straight road that connects Meeren to Gulltown passes through Oldtown. Another straight road, running west to east, connecting Meeren to Winterfell, passes through Lannisport. Further, two straight roads, one from Lannisport to Oldtown and another from Winterfell to Gulltown, are perpendicular to the road joining Meeren to Winterfell, and run from south to north.
Consider a car always travelling at the maximum permissible speed, and always taking the shortest route. It takes 1 hour to reach Oldtown from Meeren, 2 hours to reach Gulltown from Oldtown, and 45 minutes to reach Winterfell from Gulltown. (For this problem, always consider the shortest route in terms of distance.)
- XAT - 2025
- Logical and Analytical Reasoning Skills
The plots below depict and compare the average monthly incomes (in Rs. ’000) of males and females in ten cities of India in the years 2005 and 2015. The ten cities, marked A-J in the records, are of different population sizes. For a fair comparison, to adjust for inflation, incomes for both the periods are scaled to 2025 prices. Each red dot represents the average monthly income of females in a particular city in a particular year, while each blue dot represents the average monthly income of males in a particular city in a particular year. The gender gap for a city, for a particular year, is defined as the absolute value of the average monthly income of males, minus the average monthly income of females, in that year.
- XAT - 2025
- Data Interpretation