Read the passage carefully and choose the best answer for each question.
How quickly things change in the technology business! A decade ago, IBM was the awesome and undisputed king of the computer trade, universally feared and respected. A decade ago, two little companies called Intel and Microsoft were mere blips on the radar screen of the industry, upstart start-ups that had signed on to make the chips and software for IBM’s new line of personal computers. Though their products soon became industry standards, the two companies remained protected children of the market leader.
What happened since is a startling reversal of fortune. IBM is being ravaged by the worst crisis in the company’s 79 year history. It is undergoing its fifth restructuring in the past seven years as well as seemingly endless rounds of job cuts and firings that have eliminated 100,000 jobs since 1985. Last week IBM announced to its shell-shocked investors that it lost \$4.97 billion last year – the biggest loss in American corporate history.
And just when IBM is losing ground in one market after another, Intel and Microsoft have emerged as the computer industry’s most fearsome pair of competitors. The numbers on Wall Street tell a stunning story. Ten years ago, the market value of the stock of Intel and Microsoft combined amounted to about a tenth of IBM’s. Last week, with IBM’s stock at an 11-year low, Microsoft’s value surpassed its old mentor’s for the first time ever (\$26.76 billion to \$26.48 billion) and Intel (\$24.3 billion) is not far behind. While IBM is posting losses, Intel’s profits jumped 30% and Microsoft’s rose 44%.
Both Intel, the world’s largest supplier of computer chips, and Microsoft, the world’s largest supplier of computer software, have assumed the role long played by Big Blue as the industry’s pacesetter. What is taking place is a generational shift unprecedented in the information age – one recalls a transition in the US auto industry 70 years ago, when Alfred Sloan’s upstart General Motors surpassed Ford Motor as America’s No. 1 car maker. The transition also reflects the decline of computer manufacturers such as IBM, Wang, and Unisys and the rise of companies like Microsoft, Intel, and AT\&T that create the chips and software to make the computers work. “Just like Dr. Frankenstein, IBM created these two monster competitors,” says Richard Shaffer, publisher of the Computer Letter. “Now even IBM is in danger of being trampled by the creations it unleashed.”
Although Intel and Microsoft still have close relationships with Big Blue, there is little love lost between IBM and its potent progeny. IBM had an ugly falling-out with former partner Microsoft over the future of personal computer software. Microsoft developed the now famous disk operating system for IBM-PC – called DOS – and later created the operating software for the next generation of IBM personal computers, the Personal System/2. When PS/2 and its operating system, OS/2, failed to catch on, a feud erupted over how the two companies would upgrade the system. Although they publicly patched things up, the partnership was tattered. IBM developed its own version of OS/2, which has so far failed to capture the industry’s imagination. Microsoft’s competing version, dubbed New Technology, or NT, will debut in a few months and will incorporate Microsoft’s highly successful Windows program, which lets users juggle several programs at once. Windows NT, however, will offer more new features, such as the ability to link many computers together in a network and to safeguard them against unauthorized use.
IBM and Intel have also been parting company. After relying almost exclusively on the Santa Clara, California company for the silicon chips that serve as computer brains, IBM has moved to reduce its dependence on Intel by turning to competing vendors. In Europe, IBM last year began selling a low-cost line of PCs called Ambra, which runs on chips made by Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices. IBM also demonstrated a sample PC using a chip made by another Intel enemy, Cyrix. And that October IBM said it would begin selling the company’s own chips to outsiders in direct competition with Intel.
IBM clearly feels threatened. And the wounded giant still poses the biggest threat to any further dominance by Intel and Microsoft. Last year, it teamed up with both companies' most bitter rivals – Apple Computers and Motorola – to develop advanced software and microprocessors for a new generation of desktop computers. In selecting Apple and Motorola, IBM bypassed its longtime partners. Just as Microsoft’s standard operating system runs only on computers built around Intel’s computer chips, Apple’s software runs only on Motorola’s chips. Although IBM has pledged that the new system will eventually run on a variety of machines, it will initially run only computer programs written for Apple’s Macintosh or IBM’s OS/2. Its competitive juice now flowing, IBM last week announced that it and Apple Computer will deliver the operating system in 1994 – a year ahead of schedule.
As a result of greater competition in the US Computer industry
Show Hint
- some computer companies are expanding while others are contracting.
- employment in the industry is going down.
- the industry is becoming more monopolized.
- the share value of IBM is going up relative to that of Intel and Microsoft.
The Correct Option is A
Solution and Explanation
Which of the following statements is not implied by the passage?
Show Hint
- The market of microchips and software’s are becoming leaders in the computer industry.
- Wang and Unisys are primarily manufacturers of computers.
- IBM laying off workers in the biggest job cut in American corporate history.
- Intel is based in California.
The Correct Option is C
Solution and Explanation
The personal computer called Ambra is marketed by:
Show Hint
- Cyrix.
- IBM.
- Intel.
- Microsoft.
The Correct Option is B
Solution and Explanation
Why is something that happened 70 years ago in the US auto industry being mentioned here?
Show Hint
- General Motors broke away from Ford Motors.
- A new company went ahead of an established market leader.
- Like Dr. Frankenstein, Ford Motor created a monster in General Motors.
- Microsoft, Intel and AT \& T were originally created by IBM.
The Correct Option is B
Solution and Explanation
Who is mentioned as the principal supplier of silicon chips to IBM?
Show Hint
- AT\&T.
- Microsoft.
- Cyrix.
- Intel.
The Correct Option is D
Solution and Explanation
One possible conclusion from the passage is that
Show Hint
- share prices are not a good indicator of a company’s performance.
- firing workers restores a company’s health.
- all companies ultimately regret being a Dr. Frankenstein to some other company.
- consumers gain as a result of competition among producers.
The Correct Option is D
Solution and Explanation
Which of the following statements is true?
Show Hint
- IBM plans to introduce a new system that will run on a variety of machines.
- IBM’s new generation desk top computers will run only on Motorola’s chips.
- IBM is working out a joint strategy with Apple to force Motorola to supply chips at a lower price.
- IBM is going to sell its own chips to Apple and Motorola.
The Correct Option is A
Solution and Explanation
Many computers will be linked together through a network in a system developed by
Show Hint
- IBM.
- Apple.
- Microsoft.
- None of the above.
The Correct Option is C
Solution and Explanation
What was the original reason for the feud between IBM and Microsoft?
Show Hint
- The two companies developed competing software’s.
- Microsoft and Intel teamed up against IBM.
- IBM began to purchase microchips from Intel instead of Microsoft.
- IBM made loses while Microsoft made profits.
The Correct Option is A
Solution and Explanation
Which of the following statements is true?
Show Hint
- IBM plans to introduce a new system that will run on a variety of machines.
- IBM’s new generation desk top computers will run only on Motorola’s chips.
- IBM is working out a joint strategy with Apple to force Motorola to supply chips at a lower price.
- IBM is going to sell its own chips to Apple and Motorola.
The Correct Option is A
Solution and Explanation
Option (b) is inaccurate because IBM would not restrict its new systems to a single chip manufacturer, especially given the context of competition and flexibility.
Option (c) refers to a joint strategy but lacks direct support from the passage.
Option (d) is speculative — the passage never states IBM intends to sell chips to others.
Many computers will be linked together through a network in a system developed by
Show Hint
- IBM.
- Apple.
- Microsoft.
- None of the above.
The Correct Option is C
Solution and Explanation
IBM, though a major player in hardware, was not the company developing this network system as per the passage. Apple is not even mentioned in that context, and hence is irrelevant here.
Thus, Microsoft is the correct choice based on direct evidence from the text.
What was the original reason for the feud between IBM and Microsoft?
Show Hint
- The two companies developed competing software’s.
- Microsoft and Intel teamed up against IBM.
- IBM began to purchase microchips from Intel instead of Microsoft.
- IBM made losses while Microsoft made profits.
The Correct Option is A
Solution and Explanation
Option (b) is misleading — while alliances matter, the main issue was competitive software.
Option (c) mixes up hardware-supplier relations and is not related to the feud.
Option (d) states a consequence (profit difference), not the cause.
Top Questions on Reading Comprehension
- ”In recent years, technological advancements in AI and machine learning have fundamentally altered how we approach daily tasks. The growing reliance on these systems brings both challenges and opportunities, especially in areas like automation, healthcare, and customer service.”
What is the primary concern regarding the increased use of AI in daily tasks as mentioned in the passage?
- NMAT - 2025
- English Language Comprehension
- Reading Comprehension
Meta is recalibrating content on its social media platforms as the political tide has turned in Washington, with Mark Zuckerberg announcing last week that his company plans to fire its US fact-checkers. Fact-checking evolved in response to allegations of misinformation and is being watered down in response to accusations of censorship. Social media does not have solutions to either. Community review — introduced by Elon Musk at X and planned by Zuckerberg for Facebook and Instagram — is not a significant improvement over fact-checking. Having Washington lean on foreign governments over content moderation does not benefit free speech. Yet, that is the nature of the social media beast, designed to amplify bias.
Information and misinformation continue to jostle on social media at the mercy of user discretion. Social media now has enough control over all other forms of media to broaden its reach. It is the connective tissue for mass consumption of entertainment, and alternative platforms are reworking their engagement with social media. Technologies are shaping up to drive this advantage further through synthetic content targeted precisely at its intended audience. Meta’s algorithm will now play up politics because it is the flavour of the season.
The Achilles’ Heel of social media is informed choice which could turn against misinformation. Its move away from content moderation is driven by the need to be more inclusive, yet unfiltered content can push users away from social media towards legacy forms that have better moderation systems in place. Lawmakers across the world are unlikely to give social media a free run, even if Donald Trump is working on their case. Protections have already been put in place across jurisdictions over misinformation. These may be difficult to dismantle, even if the Republicans pull US-owned social media companies further to the right.
Media consumption is, in essence, evidence-based judgement that mediums must adapt to. Content moderation, not free speech, is the adaptation mechanism. Musk and Zuckerberg are not exempt- IPMAT - 2025
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
According to the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, commodities available for consumption are not inherently negative things. Baudrillard tried to interpret consumption in modern societies by engaging with the ’cargo myth’ prevalent among the indigenous Melanesian people living in the South Pacific. The Melanesians did not know what aeroplanes were. However,they saw that these winged entities descended from the air for white people and appeared to make them happy. They also noted that aeroplanes never descended for the Melanesian people. The Melanesian natives noted that the white people had placed objects similar to the aeroplane on the ground. They concluded that these objects were attracting the aeroplanes in the air and bringing them to the ground. Through a magical process, the aeroplanes were bringing plenty to the white people and making them happy. The Melanesian people concluded that they would need to place objects that simulated the aeroplane on the ground and attract them from the air. Baudrillard believes that the cargo myth holds an important analogy for the ways in which consumers engage with objects of consumption.
According to Baudrillard, the modern consumer ”sets in place a whole array of sham objects, of characteristic signs of happiness, and then waits for happiness to alight”. For instance, modern consumers believe that they will get happiness if they buy the latest available version of a mobile phone or automobile. However, consumption does not usually lead to happiness. While consumers should ideally be blaming their heightened expectations for their lack of happiness, they blame the commodity instead.
They feel that they should have waited for the next version of a mobile phone or automobile before buying the one they did. The version they bought is somehow inferior and therefore cannot make them happy. Baudrillard argues that consumers have replaced ’real’ happiness with ’signs’ of happiness. This results in the endless deferment of the arrival of total happiness. In Baudrillard’s words, ”in everyday practice, the blessings of consumption are not experienced as resulting from work or from a production process; they are experienced as a miracle”. Modern consumers view consumption in the same magical way as the Melanesian people viewed the aeroplanes in the cargo myth. Television commercials also present objects of consumption as miracles. As a result, commodities appear to be distanced from the social processes which lead to their production. In effect, objects of consumption are divorced from the reality which produces them.- IPMAT - 2025
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
CONVERSATION ANALYSIS: Read the following transcript and choose the answer that is closest to each of the questions that are based on the transcript.
Lucia Rahilly (Global Editorial Director, The McKinsey Podcast): Today we’re talking about the next big arenas of competition, about the industries that will matter most in the global business landscape, which you describe as arenas of competition. What do we mean when we use this term?
Chris Bradley (Director, McKinsey Global Institute): If I go back and look at the top ten companies in 2005, they were in traditional industries such as oil and gas, retail, industrials, and pharmaceuticals. The average company was worth about $250 billion. If I advance the clock forward to 2020, nine in ten of those companies have been replaced, and by companies that are eight times bigger than the old guards.
And this new batch of companies comes from these new arenas or competitive sectors. In fact, they’re so different that we have a nickname for them. If you’re a fan of Harry Potter, it’s wizards versus muggles.
Arena industries are wizardish; we found that there’s a set of industries that play by very different set of economic rules and get very different results, while the rest, the muggles (even though they run the world, finance the world, and energize the world), play by a more traditional set of economic rules.
Lucia Rahilly: Could we put a finer point on what is novel or different about the lens that you applied to determine what’s a wizard and what’s a muggle?
Chris Bradley: Wizards are defined by growth and dynamism. We looked at where value is flowing and the places where value is moving. And where is the value flowing? What we see is that this set of wizards, which represent about ten percent of industries, hog 45 percent of the growth in market cap. But there’s another dimension or axis too, which is dynamism. That is measured by a new metric we’ve come up with called the ”shuffle rate.” How much does the bottom move to the top? It turns out that in this set of wizardish industries, or arenas, the shuffle rate is much higher than it is in the traditional industry.
Lucia Rahilly: So, where are we seeing the most profit?
Chris Bradley: The economic profit, which is the profit you make minus the cost for the capital you employ is in the wizard industries. It’s where R&D happens; they’re two times more R&D intensive. They’re big stars, the nebulae, where new business is born.- IPMAT - 2025
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
- On the first day of January 2025, the Indian Meteorological Department [IMD] announced that 2024 was the hottest year on record. A study by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water shows that nearly eight out of ten Indians live in districts that are at risk of either a flood, a cyclone, or a drought. Nearly twenty three States in India are heatwave-prone. In the summer of 2024, India recorded more than 44,000 cases of heatstroke and over 300 heat-related mortalities, as per the bulletin of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Water reservoirs and the energy demand that keeps India powered are impacted too. During a ten-day long heatwave in Delhi, peak power demand was 16% higher than the previous year.
- IPMAT - 2025
- Verbal and Logical Ability
- Reading Comprehension
Questions Asked in CAT exam
- Let $x$, $y$, and $z$ be real numbers satisfying
\(4(x^2 + y^2 + z^2) = a,\)
\(4(x - y - z) = 3 + a.\)
Then $a$ equals ?- CAT - 2024
- Algebra
- The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Certain codes may, of course, be so widely distributed in a specific language community or culture, and be learned at so early an age, that they appear not to be constructed – the effect of an articulation between sign and referent – but to be ‘naturally’ given. Simple visual signs appear to have achieved a ‘near-universality’ in this sense: though evidence remains that even apparently ‘natural’ visual codes are culture specific. However, this does not mean that no codes have intervened; rather, that the codes have been profoundly naturalized. The operation of naturalized codes reveals not the transparency and ‘naturalness’ of language but the depth, the habituation and the near-universality of the codes in use. They produce apparently ‘natural’ recognitions. This has the (ideological) effect of concealing the practices of coding which are present.- CAT - 2024
- Para Summary
- There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: Comprehending a wide range of emotions, Renaissance music nevertheless portrayed all emotions in a balanced and moderate fashion.
Paragraph: A volume of translated Italian madrigals were published in London during the year of 1588. This sudden public interest facilitated a surge of English Madrigal writing as well as a spurt of other secular music writing and publication. ___(1)___. This music boom lasted for thirty years and was as much a golden age of music as British literature was with Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth I. ___(2)___. The rebirth in both literature and music originated in Italy and migrated to England; the English madrigal became more humorous and lighter in England as compared to Italy. Renaissance music was mostly polyphonic in texture. ___(3)___. Extreme use of and contrasts in dynamics, rhythm, and tone colour do not occur. ___(4)___. The rhythms in Renaissance music tend to have a smooth, soft flow instead of a sharp, well-defined pulse of accents.- CAT - 2024
- Para Completion
- There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: Science has officially crowned us superior to our early-rising brethren. Paragraph: My fellow night owls, grab a strong cup of coffee and gather around: I have great news. ___(1)___. For a long time, our kind has been unfairly maligned. Stereotyped as lazy and undisciplined. Told we ought to be morning larks. Advised to go to bed early so we can wake before 5am and run a marathon before breakfast like all high-flyers seem to do. Now, however, we are having the last laugh. ___(2)___. It may be a tad more complicated than that. A study published last week, which you may have already seen while scrolling at 1am, suggests that staying up late could be good for brain power. ___(3)___. Is this study a thinly veiled PR exercise conducted by a caffeine-pill company? Nope, it’s legit. ___(4)___. Research led by academics at Imperial College London studied data on more than 26,000 people and found that “self-declared ‘night owls’ generally tend to have higher cognitive scores”.- CAT - 2024
- Para Completion
- There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: Understanding central Asia’s role helps developments make more sense not only across Asia but in Europe, the Americas and Africa.
Paragraph: The nations of the Silk Roads are sometimes called ‘developing countries’, but they are actually some of the world’s most highly developed countries, the very crossroads of civilization, in advanced states of disrepair. ___(1)___. These countries lie at the centre of global affairs: they have since the beginning of history. Running across the spine of Asia, they form a web of connections fanning out in every direction, routes along which pilgrims and warriors, nomads and merchants have travelled, goods and produce have been bought and sold, and ideas exchanged, adapted and refined. ___(2)___ .They have carried not only prosperity, but also death and violence, disease and disaster. ___(3)___. The Silk Roads are the world’s central nervous system, connecting otherwise far-flung peoples and places…. ___(4)___. It allows us to see patterns and links, causes and effects that remain invisible if one looks only at Europe, or North America.- CAT - 2024
- Para Completion