Head of a nation in the Nordic region was struggling with the slowing economy on one hand and restless citizens on the other. In addition, his opponents were doing everything possible to discredit his government. As a famous saying goes, "There is no smoke without a fire", it cannot be said that the incumbent government was doing all the right things. There were reports of acts of omission and commission coming out every other day.
Distribution of public resources for private businesses and for private consumption had created a lot of problems for the government. It was being alleged that the government had given the right to exploit these public resources at throw-away prices to some private companies. Some of the citizens were questioning the government policies in the Supreme Court of the country as well as in the media. In the midst of all this, the head of the nation called his cabinet colleagues for a meeting on the recent happenings in the country.
He asked his minister of water resources about the bidding process for allocation of rights to setup mini-hydel power plants. To this, the minister replied that his ministry had followed the laid out policies of the government. Water resources were allocated to those private companies that bid the highest and were technically competent. The minister continued that later on some new companies had shown interest and they were allowed to enter the sector as per the guidelines of the Government. This, the minister added, would facilitate proper utilization of water resources and provide better services to the citizens. The new companies were allocated the rights at the price set by the highest bidders in the previous round of bidding. After hearing this, the head of the nation replied that one would expect the later allocations to be done after a fresh round of bidding. The minister of water resources replied that his ministry had taken permissions from the concerned ministries before allocating the resources to the new companies.
Media reports suggested that the minister of water resources had deliberately allocated the water resources at old prices to the new companies, and in return received kickbacks. However, the minister denied these charges. His counter argument was that he followed the stated policies of the Government and it is very difficult to price a scarce resource. He also said that the loss that the media is talking about is notional and in reality the Government and the citizens have gained by the entry of new players. Which of the following is the most appropriate inference?
Show Hint
- If benefit to the citizens is higher than notional losses then it is not unethical.
- If benefit to the citizens is lower than notional losses then it is unethical.
- If benefit to the citizens is higher than actual losses then it is not unethical.
- If benefit to the citizens is lower than actual losses then it is unethical.
- All of the above A, B, C and D are inappropriate.
The Correct Option is
Solution and Explanation
The central accusation against the minister is corruption, specifically that he "received kickbacks." This is an act of personal enrichment and a breach of public trust.
Step 2: Analyze the minister's defense.
The minister's arguments focus on procedural correctness ("followed the stated policies"), economic complexity ("difficult to price a scarce resource"), and utilitarian outcomes ("Government and the citizens have gained"). He attempts to reframe the debate around economic "losses" and "benefits."
Step 3: Evaluate the relevance of the defense to the ethical charge.
The minister's defense does not address the core allegation of receiving kickbacks. The ethical nature of his action is determined by whether he corruptly enriched himself, not by the economic outcome of the policy. An action like taking a bribe is inherently unethical, regardless of whether the associated project coincidentally produces a net benefit for citizens or whether a financial loss is "notional" versus "actual." The options (A), (B), (C), and (D) all attempt to create an ethical rule based on a cost-benefit analysis, which is an inappropriate framework for judging an act of corruption.
Step 4: Conclude the appropriateness of the inferences.
Since the ethical question of corruption is independent of the economic outcomes described, any inference that tries to justify or condemn the minister's actions based on a comparison of benefits and losses is fundamentally flawed. Therefore, all the proposed inferences are inappropriate.
Therefore: All of the above A, B, C and D are inappropriate. \[ \boxed{\text{(E)}} \]
Subsequently, the minister questioned the role of the media in the whole affair. He said that the media cannot act like a reporter, prosecutor and judge at the same time. Mr. Swamy, an independent observer, was asked about appropriateness of the minister's opinion. What should be Mr. Swamy's reply?
Show Hint
- Media has been rightly accused by the minister.
- Minister's statement may be factually incorrect.
- Media has rightly accused the minister.
- Media has wrongly accused the minister.
- None of above
The Correct Option is D
Solution and Explanation
As an "independent observer," Mr. Swamy must base his opinion on the information provided in the caselet, without making unproven assumptions.
Step 2: Analyze the core accusation by the media.
The media's report contained a very specific and criminal allegation: that the minister "received kickbacks." This goes beyond a critique of policy or procedure.
Step 3: Analyze the information available to Mr. Swamy.
The caselet presents the minister's denial and his procedural defense (he followed policy and got permissions). It also notes that the Head of the Nation questioned the procedure (preferring a fresh round of bidding) but made no mention of corruption or kickbacks. At this point, there is no evidence presented within the caselet to substantiate the media's claim of kickbacks.
Step 4: Evaluate the "appropriateness" of the minister's opinion.
The minister's opinion is that the media has unfairly judged him. An independent observer must assess if this complaint has merit based on the facts at hand. Since the most damaging part of the media's report—the charge of kickbacks—is an unproven allegation within the text, an observer could reasonably conclude that the media has overstepped by presenting this allegation as fact. Therefore, the accusation is, at this stage, wrongful. While the media has a right to report, accusing someone of a crime without presenting evidence can be seen as acting as a judge and jury prematurely.
Therefore: Based on the available information, the most appropriate reply for an independent observer is that the media has wrongly accused the minister, as the core charge of corruption is unsubstantiated. \[ \boxed{\text{(D)}} \]
Looking at the public unrest and discontent, the Government's anti-corruption branch was with the task of investigating the matter. Within a week's time the branch chargesheeted top corporate managers and the minister for wrong doings. Mr. Swamy was again asked to identify the guilty. Who should Mr. Swamy pick?
Show Hint
- Only corporate managers.
- Only the minister.
- Only the Head of the nation.
- All of the above.
- None of the above.
The Correct Option is D
Solution and Explanation
The situation has evolved significantly. A formal investigation by the "Government's anti-corruption branch" has been completed, and it has resulted in a "chargesheet" against both the "top corporate managers" and "the minister." A chargesheet is a formal document indicating that an investigative authority has found sufficient evidence to prosecute.
Step 2: Identify the directly implicated parties.
The chargesheet directly implicates the corporate managers (who would be the givers in a bribery scenario) and the minister (the receiver). Therefore, based on the official investigation, both of these parties are considered guilty. This eliminates options (A) and (B).
Step 3: Consider the responsibility of the Head of the Nation.
The caselet establishes a context of widespread problems ("slowing economy," "restless citizens," "corruption and nepotism") under the Head of the Nation's government. The minister in question is part of his cabinet. In principles of governance and public administration, the head of government bears ultimate responsibility for the actions of their ministers and the overall integrity of their administration. The corruption happened on his watch. Therefore, he is guilty of, at minimum, a failure of oversight and leadership.
Step 4: Synthesize the findings to identify all guilty parties.
The corporate managers and the minister are guilty of the specific "wrong doings." The Head of the Nation is guilty of presiding over a government where such corruption could occur. Therefore, all three parties share guilt at different levels of responsibility.
Therefore: Mr. Swamy should pick all of the above. \[ \boxed{\text{(D)}} \]
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