The difficulties historians face in establishing cause-and-effect relations in the history of human societies are broadly similar to the difficulties facing astronomers, climatologists, ecologists, evolutionary biologists, geologists, and palaeontologists. To varying degrees each of these fields is plagued by:
- The impossibility of performing replicated, controlled experimental interventions.
- The complexity arising from enormous numbers of variables.
- The resulting uniqueness of each system.
- The consequent impossibility of formulating universal laws.
- The difficulties of predicting emergent properties and future behaviour.
Prediction in history, as in other historical sciences, is most feasible on large spatial scales and over long times, when the unique features of millions of small-scale brief events become averaged out. Just as one could predict the sex ratio of the next \( 1,000 \) newborns but not the sexes of one's own two children, the historian can recognize factors that made inevitable the broad outcome of the collision between American and Eurasian societies after \( 13,000 \) years of separate developments, but not the outcome of the 1960 U.S. presidential election. The details of which candidate said what during a single televised debate in October 1960 could have given the electoral victory to Nixon instead of to Kennedy, but no details of who said what could have blocked the European conquest of Native Americans.
How can students of human history profit from the experience of scientists in other historical sciences? A methodology that has proved useful involves the comparative method and so-called natural experiments. While neither astronomers studying galaxy formation nor human historians can manipulate their systems in controlled laboratory experiments, they both can take advantage of natural experiments, by comparing systems differing in the presence or absence (or in the strong or weak effect) of some putative causative factor.
For example, epidemiologists, forbidden to feed large amounts of salt to people experimentally, have still been able to identify effects of high salt intake by comparing groups of humans who already differ greatly in their salt intake. Similarly, cultural anthropologists, unable to provide human groups experimentally with varying resource abundances for many centuries, study long-term effects of resource abundance on human societies by comparing recent Polynesian populations living on islands differing naturally in resource abundance.
The student of human history can draw on many more natural experiments than just comparisons among the five inhabited continents. Comparisons can also utilize large islands that have developed complex societies in a considerable degree of isolation (such as Japan, Madagascar, Native American Hispaniola, New Guinea, Hawaii, and many others), as well as societies on hundreds of smaller islands and regional societies within each of the continents.
Natural experiments in any field, whether in ecology or human history, are inherently open to potential methodological criticisms. Those include confounding effects of natural variation in additional variables besides the one of interest, as well as problems in inferring chains of causation from observed correlations between variables. Such methodological problems have been discussed in great detail for some of the historical sciences. In particular, epidemiology—the science of drawing inferences about human diseases by comparing groups of people (often by retrospective historical studies)—has for a long time successfully employed formalized procedures for dealing with problems similar to those facing historians of human societies.
In short, I acknowledge that it is much more difficult to understand human history than to understand problems in fields of science where history is unimportant and where fewer individual variables operate. Nevertheless, successful methodologies for analyzing historical problems have been worked out in several fields. As a result, the histories of dinosaurs, nebulae, and glaciers are generally acknowledged to belong to fields of science rather than to the humanities.
Why do islands with considerable degree of isolation provide valuable insights into human history?
Show Hint
- Isolated islands may evolve differently and this difference is of interest to us.
- Isolated islands increase the number of observations available to historians.
- Isolated islands, differing in their endowments and size may evolve differently and this difference can be attributed to their endowments and size.
- Isolated islands, differing in their endowments and size, provide a good comparison to large islands such as Eurasia, Africa, Americas and Australia.
- Isolated islands, in so far as they are inhabited, arouse curiosity about how human beings evolved there.
The Correct Option is D
Solution and Explanation
In the context of understanding the role of isolated islands in human history, the provided comprehension suggests that these islands are valuable due to their isolated conditions, which allow for natural experiments. Unlike controlled scientific experiments, historians rely on natural experiments by comparing different societies or environments that naturally vary in isolated factors.
Islands, by virtue of their isolation, present unique opportunities to compare the development of societies under differing conditions. The comprehension highlights that islands can develop complex societies in isolation, such as Japan, Madagascar, and others. This isolation, along with varied endowments (resources) and sizes, means that these islands can evolve differently from each other and from larger land masses.
The correct answer from the options provided is:
Therefore, these isolated islands help historians to understand how human societies develop by providing a natural comparative method against larger continents or other islands. They yield insights into how specific factors like resources and geography influence societal evolution when applied to the conditions of varying isolation.
According to the author, why is prediction difficult in history?
Show Hint
- Historical explanations are usually broad so that no prediction is possible.
- Historical outcomes depend upon a large number of factors and hence prediction is difficult for each case.
- Historical sciences, by their very nature, are not interested in a multitude of minor factors, which might be important in a specific historical outcome.
- Historians are interested in evolution of human history and hence are only interested in long-term predictions.
- Historical sciences suffer from the inability to conduct controlled experiments and therefore have explanations based on a few long-term factors.
The Correct Option is B
Solution and Explanation
The difficulty in making predictions in history is primarily because historical outcomes depend upon a large number of factors, making prediction challenging for each case. This complexity arises due to several reasons:
- Multiplicity of Variables: Similar to other historical sciences, history involves numerous variables that interact in complex ways, which makes establishing direct cause-and-effect relationships difficult.
- Uniqueness of Each Event: Each historical event is unique in its context and influencing factors, which does not allow for generalized predictions.
- No Controlled Experiments: Unlike sciences that can conduct controlled experiments to test hypotheses, history relies on natural experiments where observations are made based on existing data without manipulation.
- Emergent Properties and Unpredictability: The emergent properties from these interactions are difficult to foresee, adding to the unpredictability of future behavior.
The example provided in the text highlights how, while it may be possible to predict broader trends over long periods (like the interaction between American and Eurasian societies over millennia), it's much harder to predict specific, short-term events (like the outcome of the 1960 U.S. presidential election). Essentially, while broad historical outcomes can sometimes be anticipated based on large-scale patterns, the multitude of influencing factors makes precise predictions impractical.
According to the author, which of the following statements would be true?
Show Hint
- Students of history are missing significant opportunities by not conducting any natural experiments.
- Complex societies inhabiting large islands provide great opportunities for natural experiments.
- Students of history are missing significant opportunities by not studying an adequate variety of natural experiments.
- A unique problem faced by historians is their inability to establish cause and effect relationships.
- Cultural anthropologists have overcome the problem of confounding variables through natural experiments.
The Correct Option is C
Solution and Explanation
The author's main point in this passage emphasizes the valuable opportunities offered by natural experiments in studying human history. Similar to other scientific fields, history struggles with issues like the inability to conduct controlled experiments, the complexity of numerous variables, and challenges in predicting outcomes. By employing natural experiments, historians can draw insights from different societal developments under varied conditions, much like scientists in other fields tackle similar issues.
Among the provided options, the statement accurately reflecting the author's perspective is:
Students of history are missing significant opportunities by not studying an adequate variety of natural experiments.
This option aligns with the author's argument that leveraging natural experiments can enhance historical understanding, drawing parallel to methodologies used in other historical sciences.
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
- Bina incurs 19% loss when she sells a product at Rs. 4860 to Shyam, who in turn sells this product to Hari. If Bina would have sold this product to Shyam at the purchase price of Hari, she would have obtained 17% profit. Then, the profit, in rupees, made by Shyam is
- CAT - 2024
- Profit and Loss
- Gopi marks a price on a product in order to make 20% profit. Ravi gets 10% discount on this marked price, and thus saves Rs 15. Then, the profit, in rupees, made by Gopi by selling the product to Ravi, is
- CAT - 2024
- Profit and Loss
- The selling price of a product is fixed to ensure 40% profit. If the product had cost 40% less and had been sold for 5 rupees less, then the resulting profit would have been 50%. The original selling price, in rupees, of the product is
- CAT - 2024
- Profit and Loss
- A regular octagon ABCDEFGH has sides of length 6 cm each. Then the area, in sq. cm, of the square ACEG is
- CAT - 2024
- Mensuration
- The surface area of a closed rectangular box, which is inscribed in a sphere, is 846 sq cm, and the sum of the lengths of all its edges is 144 cm. The volume, in cubic cm, of the sphere is ?
- CAT - 2024
- Mensuration