For early postcolonial literature, the world of the novel was often the nation. Postcolonial novels were usually [concerned with] national questions. Sometimes the whole story of the novel was taken as an allegory of the nation, whether India or Tanzania. This was important for supporting anti-colonial nationalism, but could also be limiting - land-focused and inward looking.
My new book "Writing Ocean Worlds" explores another kind of world of the novel: not the village or nation, but the Indian Ocean world. The book describes a set of novels in which the Indian Ocean is at the centre of the story. It focuses on the novelists Amitav Ghosh, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Lindsey Collen and Joseph Conrad [who have] centred the Indian Ocean world in the majority of their novels. . . Their work reveals a world that is outward-looking full of movement, border-crossing and south-south interconnection. They are all very different - from colonially inclined (Conrad) to radically anti-capitalist (Collen), but together draw on and shape a wider sense of Indian Ocean space through themes, images, metaphors and language. This has the effect of remapping the world in the reader's mind, as centred in the interconnected global south. ... The Indian Ocean world is a term used to describe the very long-lasting connections among the coasts of East Africa, the Arab coasts, and South and East Asia.
These connections were made possible by the geography of the Indian Ocean. For much of history, travel by sea was much easier than by land, which meant that port cities very far apart were often more easily connected to each other than to much closer inland cities. Historical and archaeological evidence suggests that what we now call globalisation first appeared in the Indian Ocean. This is the interconnected oceanic world referenced and produced by the novels in my book. For their part Ghosh, Gurnah, Collen and even Conrad reference a different set of histories and geographies than the ones most commonly found in fiction in English. Those [commonly found ones] are mostly centred in Europe or the US, assume a background of Christianity and whiteness, and mention places like Paris and New York. The novels in [my] book highlight instead a largely Islamic space, feature characters of colour and centralise the ports of Malindi, Mombasa, Aden, Java and Bombay. . . . It is a densely imagined, richly sensory image of a southern cosmopolitan culture which provides for an enlarged sense of place in the world.
This remapping is particularly powerful for the representation of Africa. In the fiction, sailors and travellers are not all European. . . African, as well as Indian and Arab characters, are traders, nakhodas (dhow ship captains), runaways, villains, missionaries and activists. This does not mean that Indian Ocean Africa is romanticised. Migration is often a matter of force; travel is portrayed as abandonment rather than adventure, freedoms are kept from women and slavery is rife. What it does mean is that the African part of the Indian Ocean world plays an active role in its long, rich history and therefore in that of the wider world.
On the basis of the nature of the relationship between the items in each pair below, choose the odd pair out:
- Postcolonial novels : Anti-colonial nationalism
- Indian Ocean novels : Outward-looking
- Indian Ocean world : Slavery
postcolonial novels : Border-crossing
The Correct Option is D
Solution and Explanation
- Postcolonial novels : Anti-colonial nationalism
The passage indicates that early postcolonial novels were closely linked to national questions, often promoting anti-colonial nationalism. Thus, this pair is consistent. - Indian Ocean novels : Outward-looking
The passage describes Indian Ocean novels as being outward-looking, focusing on cross-border and intercontinental connections. This pair also fits well. - Indian Ocean world : Slavery
The passage suggests that slavery is a significant theme in the depiction of the Indian Ocean world due to historical interconnectedness. Hence, this pair is also logical. - Postcolonial novels : Border-crossing
The passage contrasts postcolonial novels as nation-focused, implying they were more land-focused and possibly inward-looking. Border-crossing attributes are more associated with Indian Ocean novels. Therefore, this pair is inconsistent.
Postcolonial novels : Border-crossing
All of the following statements, if true, would weaken the passage's claim about the relationship between mainstream English-language fiction and Indian Ocean novels EXCEPT:
- the depiction of Africa in most Indian Ocean novels is driven by a postcolonial nostalgia for an idyllic past.
- most mainstream English-language novels have historically privileged the Christian, white, male experience of travel and adventure.
- the depiction of Africa in most Indian Ocean novels is driven by an Orientalist imagination of its cultural crudeness.
- very few mainstream English-language novels have historically been set in American and European metropolitan centres.
The Correct Option is B
Solution and Explanation
The statement asserts that books from the Indian Ocean and mainstream English-language fiction are distinct and take place in different universes.
Option B supports the passage’s assertion—if true, it highlights the contrast by showing that mainstream English-language novels have historically privileged the Christian, white, male experience of travel and adventure.
If accurate, none of the other statements strengthen the passage’s argument.
If the Orientalist perception of Africa’s cultural coarseness drives the majority of Indian Ocean novels’ depictions of the continent, then Option C undermines the passage’s assertion by aligning these works with mainstream fiction.
According to the text, American and European metropolitan centers have historically served as the backdrop for most mainstream English-language books. Option D, if accurate, undermines the contrast drawn by the passage.
The passage claims that the portrayal of Africa in Indian Ocean novels is not idealized. Option A, if true, does not support the passage’s distinction.
Therefore, the correct option is (B): most mainstream English-language novels have historically privileged the Christian, white, male experience of travel and adventure.
Which one of the following statements is not true about migration in the Indian Ocean world?
- The Indian Ocean world's migration networks were shaped by religious and commercial histories of the region.
- Migration in the Indian Ocean world was an ambivalent experience
- Geographical location rather than geographical proximity determined the choice of destination for migrants.
- The Indian Ocean world's migration networks connected the global north with the global south.
The Correct Option is D
Solution and Explanation
The chapter makes no mention of or suggests anything about the migration networks that linked the global north and south over the Indian Ocean region. It is not true that Option D is incorrect.
Option C is accurate. Because it was easier to travel by sea than by land for a large portion of history, port cities located far apart were frequently more easily connected to one another than they were to much closer interior communities.
Option A is also true. As stated in the paragraph, the Indian Ocean world refers to a distinct set of histories and geographical areas compared to those commonly seen in English-language fiction, which “assume a background of Christianity and whiteness, and cite places like Paris and New York.” A predominantly Islamic space can be found in the networked cities of the global south.
Option D is accurate as well. “Migration is often a matter of force; travel is portrayed as abandonment rather than adventure, freedoms are kept from women, and slavery is rife,” the paragraph says in reference to migration in the Indian Ocean region.
Therefore, Option D is the correct response.
All of the following claims contribute to the "remapping" discussed by the passage, EXCEPT:
- the global south, as opposed to the global north, was the first centre of globalisation.
- cosmopolitanism originated in the West and travelled to the East through globalisation
- Indian Ocean novels have gone beyond the specifics of national concerns to explore rich regional pasts
- the world of early international trade and commerce was not the sole domain of white Europeans
The Correct Option is B
Solution and Explanation
The passage refers to the "Indian Ocean world" as the interconnected oceanic region of the global south, which includes East Africa, the coasts of the Arab world, South and East Asia, and other regions. These linkages are long-lasting and are made possible by maritime traffic in the Indian Ocean.
According to the passage, white Europeans were not the only ones involved in early international trade and commerce; the global south was also the first hub of globalization: "historical and archaeological evidence suggests that what we now call globalisation first appeared in the Indian Ocean".
The passage also critiques common global imaginaries: "Those [commonly found ones] are mostly centered in Europe or the US, assume a background of Christianity and whiteness, and mention places like Paris and New York."
Instead, the novels referenced in the book highlight a fundamentally Islamic space. Thus, Options A, C, and D are accurate.
Option B is incorrect as it contradicts the message conveyed in the passage.
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 CAT exam
- The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
In the dynamic realm of creativity, artists often find themselves at the crossroads between drawing inspiration from diverse cultures and inadvertently crossing into the territory of cultural appropriation. Inspiration is the lifeblood of creativity, driving artists to create works that resonate across borders. In a globalized era of the modern world, artists draw from a vast array of cultural influences. When approached respectfully, inspiration becomes a bridge, fostering understanding and appreciation of cultural diversity. However, the line between inspiration and cultural appropriation can be thin and easily blurred.
Cultural appropriation occurs when elements from a particular culture are borrowed without proper understanding, respect, or acknowledgment. This leads to the commodification of sacred symbols, the reinforcement of stereotypes, and the erasure of the cultural context from which these elements originated. It is essential to recognize that the impact of cultural appropriation extends beyond the realm of artistic expression, influencing societal perceptions and perpetuating power imbalances.- CAT - 2025
- Para Summary
- The number of distinct integers $n$ for which $\log_{\left(\frac14\right)}(n^2 - 7n + 11)>0$ is:
- CAT - 2025
- Linear Inequalities
- In the set of consecutive odd numbers $\{1, 3, 5, \ldots, 57\}$, there is a number $k$ such that the sum of all the elements less than $k$ is equal to the sum of all the elements greater than $k$. Then, $k$ equals?
- CAT - 2025
- Number Systems
- The number of distinct pairs of integers $(x, y)$ satisfying the inequalities $x>y \ge 3$ and $x + y<14$ is:
- CAT - 2025
- Number Systems
For any natural number $k$, let $a_k = 3^k$. The smallest natural number $m$ for which \[ (a_1)^1 \times (a_2)^2 \times \dots \times (a_{20})^{20} \;<\; a_{21} \times a_{22} \times \dots \times a_{20+m} \] is:
- CAT - 2025
- Linear Inequalities