List of top Questions asked in XAT

Some psychologists and sociologists believe that psychopathy can be an asset in business and politics and that, as a result, psychopathic traits are overrepresented among successful people. This would be a puzzle if it were so. If our moral feelings evolved through natural selection, then it shouldn‘t be the case that one would ourish without them. And, in fact, the successful psychopath is probably the exception. Psychopaths have certain de cits. Some of these are subtle. The psychologist Abigail Marsh and her colleagues and that psychopaths are markedly insensitive to the expression of fear. Normal people recognize fear and treat it as a distress cue, but 13 psychopaths have problems seeing it, let alone responding to it appropriately. Other deceits run deeper. The overall lack of moral sentiments—and specially, the lack of regard for others—might turn out to be the psychopath‘s downfall. We non-psychopaths are constantly assessing one another, looking for kindness and shame and the like, using this information to decide whom to trust, whom to a liate with. The psychopath has to pretend to be one of us. But this is di cult. It‘s hard to force yourself to comply with moral rules just through a rational appreciation of what you are expected to do. If you feel like strangling the cat, it‘s a struggle to hold back just because you know that it is frowned upon. Without a normal allotment of shame and guilt, psychopaths succumb to bad impulses, doing terrible things out of malice, greed, and simple boredom. And sooner or later, they get caught. While psychopaths can be successful in the short term, they tend to fail in the long term and often end up in prison or worse. Let‘s take a closer look at what separates psychopaths from the rest of us. There are many symptoms of psychopathy, including pathological lying and lack of remorse or guilt, but the core de cit is indifference toward the suffering of other people. Psychopaths lack compassion. To understand how compassion works for all of us non-psychopaths, it‘s important to distinguish it from empathy. Now, some contemporary researchers use the terms interchangeably, but there is a big difference between caring about a person (compassion) and putting yourself in the person‘s shoes (empathy).
I am too much of an adaptationist to think that a capacity as rich as empathy exists as a freak biological accident. It most likely has a function, and the most plausible candidate here is that it motivates us to care about others. Empathy exists to motivate compassion and altruism. Still, the link between empathy (in the sense of mirroring another‘s feelings) and compassion (in the sense of feeling and acting kindly toward another) is more nuanced than many people believe. First, although empathy can be automatic and unconscious—a crying person can affect your mood, even if you‘re not aware that this is happening and would rather it didn‘t—we often choose whether to empathize with another person. So when empathy is present, it may be the product of a moral choice, not the cause of it. Empathy is also in upended by what one thinks of the other person. Second, empathy is not needed to motivate compassion. As the psychologist Steven Pinker points out, “If a child has been frightened by a barking dog and is howling in terror, my sympathetic response is not to howl in terror with her, but to comfort and protect her” Third, just as you can have compassion without empathy, you can have empathy without compassion. You might feel the person‘s pain and wish to stop feeling it—but choose to solve the problem by distancing yourself from that person instead of alleviating his or her suffering. Even otherwise good people sometimes turn away when faced with depictions of pain and suffering in faraway lands, or when passing a homeless person on a city street

A pastor had eaten at restaurant with his troup of ten and his family. It is a norm to tip the waiter and about 20% of a waiter’s salary comes from these tips. However, while paying the bill, the pastor crossed out the automatic 18% tip charged for parties of more than eight and wrote “I give God 10% why do you get 18%?” above his signature. The chagrined waitress at the restaurant posted a photo of this on the social media. She was subsequently red for violating company’s policy on customer privacy. 
This would have been understandable if the restaurant had not posted just 2 weeks ago a customer receipt that was complimenting them. Social media and social activists came heavily upon the management’s ambivalent stand and the ring of the waitress. In response, the company posted a note on their social media page defending their actions. This quickly drew over 10,000 comments, mostly negative, to which the management started responding by posting the same note over and over again. There were also accusations of the company deleting negative comments and blocking users. The restaurant also experienced a sizable drop in their footfall.

Vimla is the domestic help for Shreya and her neighbour Padma; both live in a posh gated community. Vimla not only cleans the house but also cooks for both the families. Shreya treasures Vimla ever since she joined her family four years ago. Vimla joined Padma’s household this year.

Mrs Biswas was to retire in one year after serving in the construction department of the Gujarat government for more than thirty years. After retirement, she wanted to spend her retired life along with Mr Biswas, a retired school teacher in a small town in Kerala. They had two children, both studying in Bengaluru. The Biswas’ wished to construct a house in Kerala with their life savings. 
The couple gathered information about owning a house in Kerala. They had four options:
1.Buy a fully furnished house from a big developer.
2.Buy a semi-furnished house from big developer and furnish it.
3.Get a local unregistered contractor to construct a house and furnish it.
4.Mr Biswas with inputs from the family could supervise the construction of a house back in Kerala by employing the best material, engineers, masons and labourers

A University coach was asked to select teams in three sports: Shooting, Cricket (batsmen only) and “Snakes & Ladder”. The honest and keen observer head boy of the school informed the coach that he had observed 100 students playing the three games - shooting, cricket and “Snakes & Ladder”. In shooting, all students were given 100 chances to hit a target. In cricket, a batsman faced a maximum of 100 balls, provided he DID NOT GET OUT.
In “Snakes & Ladder”, every student could play 100 matches, one each with the other students and one against a computer. In shooting, a player got one point for hitting the target and zero point for missing the target. In cricket, a batsman got one point for hitting the ball and zero point for missing it. In “Snakes & Ladder”, a person got one point for winning the game and zero for losing. To the coach’s utter surprise, the distribution of points across all three games was the same. It was as follows: 

Analyse the following passage and provide appropriate answers for the questions that follow: 
An effective way of describing what interpersonal communication is or is not, is perhaps to capture the underlying beliefs using speci c game analogies.
Communication as Bowling: The bowling model of message delivery is probably the most widely held view of communication. I think that’s unfortunate. This model sees the bowler as the sender, who delivers the ball, which is the message. As it rolls down the lane (the channel), clutter on the boards (noise) may de ect the ball (the message). Yet if it is aimed well, the ball strikes the passive pins (the target audience) with a predictable effect. In this one - way model of communication, the speaker (bowler) must take care to select a precisely crafted message (ball) and practice diligently to deliver it the same way every time. Of course, that makes sense only if target listeners are interchangeable, static pins waiting to be bowled over by our words - which they aren’t.
This has led some observers to propose an interactive model of interpersonal communication. Communication as Ping - Pong: Unlike bowling, Ping - Pong is not a solo game. This fact alone makes it a better analogy for interpersonal communication. One party puts the conversational ball in play, and the other gets into position to receive. It takes more concentration and skill to receive than to serve because while the speaker (server) knows where the message is going, the listener (receive) doesn’t. Like a verbal or nonverbal message, the ball may appear straightforward yet have a deceptive spin. Ping - Pong is a back - and - forth game; players switch roles continuously. One moment the person holding the paddle is an initiator; the next second the same player is a responder, gauging the effectiveness of his or her shot by the way the ball comes back. The repeated adjustment essential for good play closely parallels the feedback process described in a number of interpersonal communication theories. Communication as Dumb Charades The game of charades best captures the simultaneous and collaborative nature of interpersonal communication. A charade is neither an action, like bowling a strike, nor an interaction, like a rally in Ping - Pong. It’s a transaction. Charades is a mutual game; the actual play is cooperative. One member draws a title or slogan from a batch of possibilities and then tries to act it out visually for teammates in a silent mini drama. The goal is to get at least one partner to say the exact words that are on the slip of paper. Of course, the actor is prohibited from talking out loud. Suppose you drew the saying “God helps those who help themselves.” For God you might try folding your hands and gazing upward. For helps you could act out offering a helping hand or giving a leg - up boost over a fence. By pointing at a number of real or imaginary people you may elicit a response of them, and by this point a partner may shout out, “God helps those who help themselves.” Success.
Like charades, interpersonal communication is a mutual, on - going process of sending, receiving, and adapting verbal and nonverbal messages with another person to create and alter images in both of our minds. Communication between us begins when there is some overlap between two images, and is effective to the extent that overlap increases. But even if our mental pictures are congruent, communication will be partial as long as we interpret them differently. The idea that “God helps those who help themselves’ could strike one person as a hollow promise, while the other might regard it as a divine stamp of approval for hard work. Dumb Charade goes beyond the simplistic analogy of bowling and ping pong. It views interpersonal communications as a complex transaction in which overlapping messages simultaneously affect and are affected by the other person and multiple other factors.

Analyse the following passage and provide appropriate answers for the questions that follow:
Advances in economic theory in the 1970s and 1980s illuminated the limits of markets; they showed that unfettered markets do not lead to economic e ciency whenever information is imperfect or markets are missing (for instance, good insurance markets to cover the key risks confronting individuals). And information is always imperfect and markets are always incomplete. Nor do markets, by themselves, necessarily lead to economic e ciency when the task of a country is to absorb new technology, to close the “knowledge gap”: a central feature of development. Today, most academic economists agree that markets, by themselves, do not lead to e ciency; the question is whether government can improve matters.
While it is di cult for economics to perform experiments to test their theories, as a chemist or a physicist might, the world provides a vast array of natural experiments as dozens of countries try different strategies. Unfortunately, because each country differs in its history and circumstances and in the myriad of details in the policies - and details do matter - it is often di cult to get a clear interpretation. What is clear, however, is that there have been marked differences in performance, that the most successful countries have been those in Asia, and that in most of the Asian countries, government played a very active role. As we look more carefully at the effects of particular policies, these conclusions are reinforced: there is a remarkable congruence between what economic theory says government should do and what the East Asian governments actually did. By the same token, the economic theories based on imperfect information and incomplete risk markets that predicted that the free ow of short-term capital - a key feature of market fundamentalist policies - would produce not growth but instability have also been borne out 

Analyse the following passage and provide appropriate answers for the questions that follow:
The base of Objectivism according to Ayan Rand is explicit: “Existence exists – and the act of grasping that statement implies two corollary axioms: that something exists which one perceives and that one exists processing consciousness, consciousness being the faculty of perceiving that which exists.” Existence and consciousness are facts implicit in every perception. They are the base of all knowledge (and the precondition of proof): knowledge presupposes something to know and someone to know it. They are absolutes which cannot be questioned or escaped: every human utterance, including the denial of these axioms, implies their use and acceptance. The third axiom at the base of knowledge – an axioms true, in Aristotle’s words, of “being qua being” – is the Law of Identity. This law de nes the essence of existence: to be is to be something, a thing is what it is; and leads to the fundamental principle of all action, the law of causality. The law of causality states that a thing’s actions are determined not by chance, but by its nature, i.e. by what it is. It is important to observe the interrelation of these three axioms. Existence is the rst axiom. The universe exists independent of consciousness. Man is able to adapt his background to his own requirements, but “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed” (Francis Bacon). There is no mental process that can change the laws of nature or erase facts. The function of consciousness is not to create reality, but to apprehend it. “Existence is Identity, Consciousness is Identi cation.” 

Indian Institute of Research is a Government-established body to promote research. In addition to helping in policy making, it also provides free online access to all the articles to the public. It has a mission of publishing high quality research articles. Till 2010, the publication of articles was very slow because there was no incentive for researchers to publish. Researchers stuck to the mandatory one article a year. Most of the researchers engaged in offering consultancy and earned extra income. Since its inception, the institute was considered the best place for cutting edge research. The new director of the institute was not happy with the work done by researchers in silo and came out with a new research policy in 2013 to increase research output and improve collaboration among researchers. It was decided that extra benefitts would be offered to researchers with new publications. As a result, the number of research articles increased fourfold in 2014. At the 2015 annual audit, an objection was raised against increased expenses towards remuneration for researchers. Further, the Government opined that the publication was itself a reward and hence researchers need be paid nothing extra. The director tried to defend his policy but the response from the government was not encouraging.
l. Note: Auditors role is to verify accounts.

Analyse the following caselet and answer the questions that follow: 
Kamal Chinnappa, Vimal Rao, Ganesh Krishnan and Dinesh Kumar own a saloon each on the Barbil street. They are the only hairdressers on that street. Each of them offered three services viz. haircut, shaving and hair-dye. One evening, all four of them met in a nearby tea-stall and agreed to charge Rs. 100 for any of the three services (haircut, shave and hair-dye) on weekdays. They also agreed to increase this rate to Rs. 115 on weekends and holidays. All verbally decided to implement the agreement. 

Analyse the following caselet and answer the questions that follow:
The City of Yashmund is served by licensed taxis operating on o cially sanctioned metered rates and driven by licensed drivers who do not own the taxis but pay a monthly rent to the taxi-owners. Shailesh Nair, the mayor of Yashmund, perceived that most of these taxis do not offer su cient comfort and safety to passengers