Preparing for the CAT isn’t just about cramming formulas or solving math puzzles. One of the most unpredictable and critical sections of the paper is Reading Comprehension (RC)—a test of your focus, logic, language, and inference skills all at once.
That’s why we bring you the Weekly CAT Prep Challenge—your chance to test and sharpen your skills with hand-picked RC passages that mirror actual CAT difficulty and structure.
Reading Comprehension accounts for nearly 70% of the VARC section in CAT. The trick? The passage might not be difficult to read, but the questions will test how deeply and accurately you understood it. A well-practiced reader reads between the lines, questions assumptions, and avoids traps.
Weekly Challenge: Percentage Question Series
Below are carefully selected RC passages for this week’s challenge. Attempt them with a strict timer (around 8-9 minutes per passage) and avoid rereading unless necessary. This mimics actual CAT conditions.
How to Attempt These Challenges
- Time yourself. Limit each passage to 8-9 minutes max.
- Avoid the temptation to overanalyze. Go with the author’s tone and intent, not your own opinion.
- Read the questions before or after the passage based on what works for you (experiment to find your style).
- Don’t skip inference-based questions—they are often easier than fact-based ones when you understand the passage well.
PASSAGE 1
When a vast flock of starlings swoops through the sky in seamless coordination, the visual spectacle appears choreographed, as though led by some invisible conductor. However, there is no central leader. Each bird adjusts its flight based on the movements of a few nearby neighbors, and from these local interactions, a coherent and dynamic group behavior—called a murmuration—emerges. This phenomenon is an example of emergence, where collective patterns arise from simple individual actions.
Such emergent behavior isn't limited to birds. Consider human language: no central authority dictated that “Google” should become a verb or that “selfie” would enter global lexicons. These linguistic changes arose from countless individual uses across informal interactions. Similarly, market prices emerge from the combined decisions of millions of buyers and sellers, each responding to personal incentives and local information. No single participant knows or controls the “correct” price, but together they generate a constantly evolving system.
Emergence challenges traditional top-down models of organization. In centralized systems, behavior is directed by a hierarchy or a master controller. In emergent systems, however, complexity arises from the bottom up. While each unit (bird, trader, speaker) follows relatively simple rules, the group exhibits intelligence, adaptability, and even creativity that individual units don’t possess.
Importantly, emergent systems defy reductive analysis—the idea that understanding individual parts is sufficient to understand the whole. While each bird’s behavior in a murmuration can be modeled, the collective pattern resists prediction unless one examines the network as a whole. The same applies to the human brain: understanding individual neurons won't fully explain consciousness, just as decoding a single word doesn’t reveal the richness of a novel.
Questions
1. Which of the following best illustrates the principle of emergence as discussed in the passage?
A. A symphony directed by a conductor
B. A slang term gaining popularity through social media
C. A CEO issuing directives to all employees
D. A thermostat maintaining room temperature
2. According to the passage, why can't emergent systems be fully understood through reductive analysis?
A. Their central controlling mechanisms are hidden
B. Their components are too numerous to study individually
C. Their collective behavior results from interactions that individual parts alone do not exhibit
D. They are governed by unpredictable external forces
3. What is the primary function of the starling example in the passage?
A. To show how birds communicate in complex environments
B. To introduce the idea of coordinated behavior without central control
C. To highlight the role of migration in avian life
D. To contrast natural behavior with artificial intelligence
4. What does the author imply about top-down models of organization?
A. They are inadequate for explaining complex, adaptive systems
B. They rely too heavily on artificial intelligence
C. They work best in complex biological systems
D. They are more efficient than emergent models
5. Based on the passage, which of the following phenomena is not an example of emergence?
A. The spread of a new phrase in spoken language
B. Instructions given in a military chain of command
C. Viral trends on the internet
D. Traffic flow during rush hour
PASSAGE 2
When imagining communication with extraterrestrial life, we tend to assume that language—whether spoken, signed, or symbolically coded—will follow a structure analogous to human language. This belief, however, rests on an anthropocentric view: that the patterns of human cognition and social behavior are universal. But the diversity within Earth's own species should already caution us. Even among human cultures, there are languages that defy so-called linguistic norms. Some rely heavily on whistles, others on tone, and some have no fixed word order. If such variation exists on one planet, how much more alien could actual alien languages be?
One challenge is that human language is deeply entwined with human perception—specifically, the way our senses and cognition are structured. Our languages prioritize space, time, agency, and objects because these concepts are crucial to our survival and daily navigation. But an alien species may not experience the world through eyes or ears, or in linear time. What if their language encodes chemical changes in the atmosphere, magnetic fields, or shifts in gravitational pull?
Moreover, our grammatical structures reflect our social dynamics. For instance, the distinction between “I” and “we” or between active and passive voice speaks volumes about human values and relationships. If a species were collectively conscious—sharing thoughts seamlessly across minds—would they even need words to distinguish between speaker and listener?
The SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project often looks for mathematical or musical regularities in signals, assuming that logic and symmetry are universal. Yet even math is framed by our particular understanding of the universe. A civilization that evolved in a quantum-aware reality might encode information in probabilistic states rather than fixed numbers.
In short, alien language may not be “language” as we understand it. It could be radically non-symbolic, non-linear, and even imperceptible to our current technologies—not because it's unintelligible, but because it doesn't align with the way we structure information.
Questions
1. What assumption does the author challenge in the passage?
A. That alien life will be hostile
B. That human linguistic structures are universally applicable
C. That math is irrelevant to SETI communication
D. That aliens must have superior intelligence
2. The author uses examples of human languages to:
A. Prove that all languages have a common grammar
B. Show the superiority of spoken languages over other forms
C. Illustrate the diversity even within a single species
D. Support the idea that alien languages will be easy to learn
3. What does the passage suggest about the relationship between language and perception?
A. Language is entirely independent of sensory input
B. All species perceive the world in similar ways
C. Human language reflects specific sensory and cognitive frameworks
D. Perception is shaped by grammar more than by biology
4. Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the author’s argument?
A. All known intelligent species in science fiction use similar linguistic patterns
B. SETI discovers a repeating signal based on prime numbers
C. Researchers find a tribe on Earth that communicates solely via radio waves
D. Neuroscientists prove that human brains are uniquely capable of symbolic language
5. The tone of the passage can best be described as:
A. Dismissive and ironic
B. Speculative and analytical
C. Emotional and persuasive
D. Humorous and skeptical
Answer Key
Passage 1-: 1-B, 2-C, 3-B, 4-A, 5-B
Passage 2-: 1-B, 2-C, 3-C, 4-D, 5-B
Final Words
CAT is not about attempting every RC question—it’s about picking the right passages, avoiding traps, and maximizing accuracy. This weekly challenge is your space to grow these instincts and build confidence.
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