To what extent reasoning can _____ (I) _____ a reliable basis for a theory of justice is, of course, itself an issue that has been subject to controversy. ______ (II) ______ first chapter of this book is (III). with the role and reach of reasoning. I argue against the plausibility of seeing emotions or psychology or instincts as independent sources of valuation, without reasoned appraisal. Impulses and mental attitudes remain important, however, since we have good reasons to take note of them in our assessment of justice and injustice in the world. There is no irreducible conflict here, I argue, between reason and emotion, and there are very good reasons for making room for the relevance of emotions. In the above passage there are blanks, each of which has been numbered. Find out the appropriate option in each case to replace the given numbers.
Pick the appropriate replacement for (I):
- provide
- provides
- provided
- be provided
The Correct Option is A
Solution and Explanation
The question asks us to find the appropriate word to replace the blank marked (I) in the given passage. We must ensure that the selected word maintains the grammatical structure of the sentence and logically fits into the overall meaning of the passage.
The sentence in question is: "To what extent reasoning can _____ (I) _____ a reliable basis for a theory of justice is, of course, itself an issue that has been subject to controversy."
According to this sentence, we are looking for a verb form that complements "can" which is used here as a modal verb.
Let's evaluate each option:
- provide: This is the base form of the verb which is used after modal verbs like 'can'. Thus, "can provide" is grammatically correct.
- provides: This is the third person singular form and it is not grammatically correct after 'can'.
- provided: This is the past tense form and does not fit after a modal verb.
- be provided: This is a passive form, which does not fit the context as we are not referring to something being provided passively.
From the options given, "provide" is correct because modal verbs are followed by the base form of verbs.
Therefore, the correct answer is provide to complete the sentence: "To what extent reasoning can provide a reliable basis for a theory of justice...".
Pick the appropriate replacement for (II):
- a
- an
- the
- None of the above
The Correct Option is C
Solution and Explanation
To determine the appropriate replacement for (II) in the passage, we need to examine the context in which the blank appears. The passage mentions “the first chapter of this book.” When referring to something specific and previously mentioned, or something assumed to be known by the reader, the definite article "the" is used. Here, "the first chapter" specifies a particular chapter, making "the" the correct article.
Let's check the roles of each option:
- a: Used when referring to any general/non-specific object (e.g., "a book"). However, here we have a specific chapter, not a general one.
- an: Used before words that begin with a vowel sound. It serves a similar general-purpose role as "a" and is inappropriate because we are referring to the specific first chapter.
- the: Used for specifying particular items previously mentioned, identifiable, or unique (e.g., "the moon"). It is the correct choice for the sentence as it specifies the first chapter of a particular book.
- None of the above: This would imply that none of the other options fit, but "the" clearly fits the need for a specific reference.
Therefore, the appropriate replacement for (II) is the.
In conclusion, option “the” correctly fills the blank because it pertains to a specific chapter in the book referred to in the passage.
Pick the appropriate replacement for (III):
- concern
- concerns
- concerned
- concerning
The Correct Option is C
Solution and Explanation
To solve the given problem, we need to determine the correct grammatical form that fits in blank (III) of the passage. The options given are: concern, concerns, concerned, and concerning.
- Let's first understand the sentence structure where blank (III) is located. The passage states: "The first chapter of this book is (III). with the role and reach of reasoning." The word that best fits here should correctly complete the sentence grammatically.
- Examining the options:
- Concern: This is a noun or a verb, e.g., "This is a matter of concern." or "They concern themselves with these issues." It does not fit grammatically in the context of "is ... with the role."
- Concerns: This is the third-person singular form of the verb 'concern' or a noun in plural form. It does not fit well grammatically as it fails to directly connect with "is ... with the role."
- Concerned: This is the past participle form of the verb 'concern' used as an adjective. It fits well because it describes the subject ("the first chapter") in relation to its focus ("... with the role and reach of reasoning"). The phrase "is concerned with" is a commonly used expression.
- Concerning: As a preposition, it can mean "regarding," which does not fit in the sentence structure starting with "is ...."
- Based on grammatical correctness and common usage, "The first chapter of this book is concerned with the role and reach of reasoning" is the correct construction.
- Therefore, the appropriate replacement for the blank (III) is concerned.
In conclusion, the word that should fill blank (III) is "concerned" as it correctly completes the sentence both grammatically and contextually.
Top Questions on 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
As the post–World War II generation of liberal democratic leaders forged new, highly successful domestic and international institutions and policies throughout the West, the weaknesses of liberal democracy that dominated the two decades after World War II faded from view. But they did not go away.
First, because liberal democracy restrains majorities, it slows the achievement of goals that majorities support. This generates frustration with institutional restraints, and an unacknowledged envy of authoritarian systems that can act quickly and decisively. China can build huge cities in the time it takes the United States to review the environmental impact of small highway projects. Liberal democracy requires more patience than many possess. Second, liberal democracy requires tolerance for minority views and ways of life to which many citizens are deeply opposed. It is natural to feel that if we consider certain views or ways of life to be odious, we should use public power to suppress them. In many such cases, liberal democracy restrains this impulse, a psychological burden that some will find unbearable.
This leads directly to the third inherent problem of liberal democracy—the distinction it requires us to make between civic identity and personal or group identity. For example, although we may consider certain religious views false and even dangerous, we must, for civic purposes, accept those who hold these views as our equals. They may freely express these views; they may organize to promote them; they may vote, and their votes are given the same weight as ours. The same goes for race, ethnicity, gender, and all the particularities that distinguish us from one another.
This requirement often goes against the grain of natural sentiments. We want the public sphere to reflect what we find most valuable about our private commitments. Liberal democracy prevents us from fully translating our personal identities into our public lives as citizens. This too is not always easy to bear. The quest for wholeness—for a political community, or even a world, that reflects our most important commitments—is a deep yearning to which liberal leaders can always appeal.
Nor is the fourth inherent difficulty of liberal democracy—the necessity of compromise—easy to bear. If what I want is good and true, why should I agree that public decisions must incorporate competing views? James Madison gives us the answer: in circumstances of liberty, diversity of views is inevitable, and unless those who agree with us form a majority so large as to be irresistible, the alternative to compromise is inaction, which is often more damaging, or oppression, which always is.- XAT - 2026
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
Beware of the old newspapers
stacked
on that little three legged stool over there.
Don’t disturb them.
I know it for a fact
that snakes have spawned in between these sheets.
Don’t even look in that direction.
It’s not because of breeze
that their corners are fluttering.
It’s alive, that nest of newspapers.
new born snakes, coiling and uncurling,
are turning their heads to look at you.
That white corner has spread its hood.
A forked tongue
shoots out of its mouth.
Keep your eyes closed.
Get rid of the whole goddamn pile if you
want to
in the morning.- XAT - 2026
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
Questions Asked in CMAT exam
- A "Febian Entrepreneur" is a term used to describe a type of entrepreneur who focuses on gradual and steady growth rather than rapid scaling. Which of the following best describes the approach of a Febian Entrepreneur?
- CMAT - 2025
- Current Affairs
- The Lean Startup methodology, popularized by Eric Ries, emphasizes a cycle of building, measuring, and learning to create successful products efficiently. Which of the following is a key principle of the Lean Startup approach?
- CMAT - 2025
- Current Affairs
- Dudhwa National Park, known for its rich biodiversity and tiger conservation efforts, is located in which Indian state?
- CMAT - 2025
- Current Affairs
- The first CDS (Chief of Defence Staff) of India was appointed to enhance coordination and integration among the three branches of the Indian Armed Forces. Who was the first CDS of India?
- CMAT - 2025
- Current Affairs
- A clock is set at 8 am. It loses 10 minutes every 24 hours. What will be the true time when the clock shows 11 am?
- CMAT - 2025
- Logical and Analytical Reasoning Skills