f(x)=\frac{x^{2}+2x-15}{x^{2}-7x-18} is negative if and only if · CAT (IIM Common Admission Test)

Inequalities, Modulus & Maxima–Minima

Quantitative Ability · PYQ 2021

f(x)=\frac{x^{2}+2x-15}{x^{2}-7x-18} is negative if and only if

Logic-based DI & Mathematical Reasoning

Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning · PYQ 2019

Data

Three pouches, each represented by a filled circle, are kept in each slot of a 3 × 3 grid. Every pouch contains a certain number of one-rupee coins. The table gives the minimum and maximum amounts, in rupees, among the three pouches in each slot.

Row	Column 1: minimum, maximum	Column 2: minimum, maximum	Column 3: minimum, maximum
1	(2, 4)	(6, 8)	(1, 3)
2	(3, 5)	(1, 1)	(6, 20)
3	(1, 2)	(1, 2)	(2, 5)

There are nine pouches in each row and nine in each column. The average amount of money in the nine pouches of any row or column is an integer. The total amount in the three pouches in row 3, column 1 is Rs. 4.

What is the number of slots for which the average amount (in rupees) of its three pouches is an integer?

RC — Strengthen, Weaken & Application

Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension · PYQ 2025

Passage

Understanding the key properties of complex systems can help us clarify and deal with many new and existing global challenges, from pandemics to poverty . . . A recent study in Nature Physics found transitions to orderly states such as schooling in fish (all fish swimming in the same direction), can be caused, paradoxically, by randomness, or ‘noise’ feeding back on itself. That is, a misalignment among the fish causes further misalignment, eventually inducing a transition to schooling. Most of us wouldn’t guess that noise can produce predictable behaviour. The result invites us to consider how technology such as contact-tracing apps, although informing us locally, might negatively impact our collective movement. If each of us changes our behaviour to avoid the infected, we might generate a collective pattern we had aimed to avoid: higher levels of interaction between the infected and susceptible, or high levels of interaction among the asymptomatic.

Complex systems also suffer from a special vulnerability to events that don’t follow a normal distribution or ‘bell curve’. When events are distributed normally, most outcomes are familiar and don’t seem particularly striking. Height is a good example: it’s pretty unusual for a man to be over 7 feet tall; most adults are between 5 and 6 feet, and there is no known person over 9 feet tall. But in collective settings where contagion shapes behaviour – a run on the banks, a scramble to buy toilet paper – the probability distributions for possible events are often heavy-tailed. There is a much higher probability of extreme events, such as a stock market crash or a massive surge in infections. These events are still unlikely, but they occur more frequently and are larger than would be expected under normal distributions.

What’s more, once a rare but hugely significant ‘tail’ event takes place, this raises the probability of further tail events. We might call them second-order tail events; they include stock market gyrations after a big fall and earthquake aftershocks. The initial probability of second-order tail events is so tiny it’s almost impossible to calculate – but once a first-order tail event occurs, the rules change, and the probability of a second-order tail event increases.

The dynamics of tail events are complicated by the fact that they result from cascades of other unlikely events. When COVID-19 first struck, the stock market suffered stunning losses followed by an equally stunning recovery. Some of these dynamics are potentially attributable to former sports bettors, with no sports to bet on, entering the market as speculators rather than investors. The arrival of these new players might have increased inefficiencies and allowed savvy long-term investors to gain an edge over bettors with different goals. . . .

One reason a first-order tail event can induce further tail events is that it changes the perceived costs of our actions and changes the rules that we play by. This game-change is an example of another key complex systems concept: nonstationarity. A second, canonical example of nonstationarity is adaptation, as illustrated by the arms race involved in the coevolution of hosts and parasites [in which] each has to ‘run’ faster, just to keep up with the novel solutions the other one presents as they battle it out in evolutionary time.

The passage suggests that contact tracing apps could inadvertently raise risky interactions by altering local behaviour. Which one of the assumptions below is most necessary for that suggestion to hold?

Logic-based DI & Mathematical Reasoning

Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning · PYQ 2022

Case

A few salesmen are employed to sell a product called TRICCEK among households in various housing complexes. On each day, a salesman is assigned to visit one housing complex. Once a salesman enters a housing complex, he can meet any number of households in the time available. However, if a household makes a complaint against the salesman, then he must leave the housing complex immediately and cannot meet any other household on that day. A household may buy any number of TRICCEK items or may not buy any item. The salesman needs to record the total number of TRICCEK items sold as well as the number of households met in each day. The success rate of a salesman for a day is defined as the ratio of the number of items sold to the number of households met on that day. Some details about the performances of three salesmen - Tohri, Hokli and Lahur, on two particular days are given below.

1.Over the two days, all three of them met the same total number of households, and each of them sold a total of 100 items.

2.On both days, Lahur met the same number of households and sold the same number of items.

3.Hokli could not sell any item on the second day because the first household he met on that day complained against him.

4.Tohri met 30 more households on the second day than on the first day.

5.Tohri's success rate was twice that of Lahur's on the first day, and it was 75% of Lahur's on the second day.

How many TRICCEK items were sold by Tohri on the first day?

VA — Para-Jumbles (Sentence Arrangement)

Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension · PYQ 2021

The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3 and 4) below, when properly sequenced would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequencing of the order of the sentences and key in the sequence of the four numbers as your answer:

1.Look forward a few decades to an invention which can end the energy crisis, change the global economy and curb climate change at a stroke: commercial fusion power.

2.To gain meaningful insights, logic has to be accompanied by asking probing questions of nature through controlled tests, precise observations and clever analysis.

3.The greatest of all inventions is the über-invention that has provided the insights on which others depend: the modern scientific method.

4.This invention is inconceivable without the scientific method; it will rest on the application of a diverse range of scientific insights, such as the process transforming hydrogen into helium to release huge amounts of energy.

Answer this one in Coach

Logic-based DI & Mathematical Reasoning

Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning · PYQ 2023

Data

Five restaurants, coded R1, R2, R3, R4 and R5 gave integer ratings to five gig workers – Ullas, Vasu, Waman, Xavier and Yusuf, on a scale of 1 to 5.

The means of the ratings given by R1, R2, R3, R4 and R5 were 3.4, 2.2, 3.8, 2.8 and 3.4 respectively.

The summary statistics of these ratings for the five workers is given below.

	Ullas	Vasu	Waman	Xavier	Yusuf
Mean rating	2.2	3.8	3.4	3.6	2.6
Median rating	2	4	4	4	3
Modal rating	2	4	5	5	1 and 4
Range of rating*	3	3	4	4	3

* Range of ratings is defined as the difference between the maximum and minimum ratings awarded to a worker.

The following is partial information about ratings of 1 and 5 awarded by the restaurants to the workers.

(a) R1 awarded a rating of 5 to Waman, as did R2 to Xavier, R3 to Waman and Xavier, and R5 to Vasu.

(b) R1 awarded a rating of 1 to Ullas, as did R2 to Waman and Yusuf, and R3 to Yusuf.

How many individual ratings cannot be determined from the above information?

Quadrilaterals & Polygons

Quantitative Ability · PYQ 2022

The lengths of all four sides of a quadrilateral are integer valued. If three of its sides are of length 1 cm, 2 cm and 4 cm, then the total number of possible lengths of the fourth side is

RC — Strengthen, Weaken & Application

Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension · PYQ 2019

Passage

Contemporary internet shopping conjures a perfect storm of choice anxiety. Research has consistently held that people who are presented with a few options make better, easier decisions than those presented with many. . . . Helping consumers figure out what to buy amid an endless sea of choice online has become a cottage industry unto itself. Many brands and retailers now wield marketing buzzwords such as curation, differentiation, and discovery as they attempt to sell an assortment of stuff targeted to their ideal customer. Companies find such shoppers through the data gold mine of digital advertising, which can catalog people by gender, income level, personal interests, and more. Since Americans have lost the ability to sort through the sheer volume of the consumer choices available to them, a ghost now has to be in the retail machine, whether it’s an algorithm, an influencer, or some snazzy ad tech to help a product follow you around the internet. Indeed, choice fatigue is one reason so many people gravitate toward lifestyle influencers on Instagram—the relentlessly chic young moms and perpetually vacationing 20-somethings—who present an aspirational worldview, and then recommend the products and services that help achieve it. . . .

For a relatively new class of consumer-products start-ups, there’s another method entirely. Instead of making sense of a sea of existing stuff, these companies claim to disrupt stuff as Americans know it. Casper (mattresses), Glossier (makeup), Away (suitcases), and many others have sprouted up to offer consumers freedom from choice: The companies have a few aesthetically pleasing and supposedly highly functional options, usually at mid-range prices. They’re selling nice things, but maybe more importantly, they’re selling a confidence in those things, and an ability to opt out of the stuff rat race. . . .

One-thousand-dollar mattresses and $300 suitcases might solve choice anxiety for a certain tier of consumer, but the companies that sell them, along with those that attempt to massage the larger stuff economy into something navigable, are still just working within a consumer market that’s broken in systemic ways. The presence of so much stuff in America might be more valuable if it were more evenly distributed, but stuff’s creators tend to focus their energy on those who already have plenty. As options have expanded for people with disposable income, the opportunity to buy even basic things such as fresh food or quality diapers has contracted for much of America’s lower classes.

For start-ups that promise accessible simplicity, their very structure still might eventually push them toward overwhelming variety. Most of these companies are based on hundreds of millions of dollars of venture capital, the investors of which tend to expect a steep growth rate that can’t be achieved by selling one great mattress or one great sneaker. Casper has expanded into bedroom furniture and bed linens. Glossier, after years of marketing itself as no-makeup makeup that requires little skill to apply, recently launched a full line of glittering color cosmetics. There may be no way to opt out of stuff by buying into the right thing.

A new food brand plans to launch a series of products in the American market. Which of the following product plans is most likely to be supported by the author of the passage?

LR — Distribution & Matching Puzzles

Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning · PYQ 2023

Case

Faculty members in a management school can belong to one of four departments – Finance and Accounting (F&A), Marketing and Strategy (M&S), Operations and Quants (O&Q) and Behaviour and Human Resources (B&H). The numbers of faculty members in F&A, M&S, O&Q and B&H departments are 9, 7, 5 and 3 respectively.

Prof. Pakrasi, Prof. Qureshi, Prof. Ramaswamy and Prof. Samuel are four members of the school's faculty who were candidates for the post of the Dean of the school. Only one of the candidates was from O&Q.

Every faculty member, including the four candidates, voted for the post. In each department, all the faculty members who were not candidates voted for the same candidate. The rules for the election are listed below.

1.There cannot be more than two candidates from a single department.

2.A candidate cannot vote for himself/herself.

3.Faculty members cannot vote for a candidate from their own department.

After the election, it was observed that Prof. Pakrasi received 3 votes, Prof. Qureshi received 14 votes, Prof. Ramaswamy received 6 votes and Prof. Samuel received 1 vote. Prof. Pakrasi voted for Prof. Ramaswamy, Prof. Qureshi for Prof. Samuel, Prof. Ramaswamy for Prof. Qureshi and Prof. Samuel for Prof. Pakrasi.

If Prof. Samuel belongs to B&H, which of the following statements is/are true?

Statement A: Prof. Pakrasi belongs to M&S.

Statement B: Prof. Ramaswamy belongs to O&Q.

Percentages, Profit, Loss & Discount

Quantitative Ability · PYQ 2017

In a market, the price of medium quality mangoes is half that of good mangoes. A shopkeeper buys 80 kg good mangoes and 40 kg medium quality mangoes from the market and then sells all these at a common price which is 10% less than the price at which he bought the good ones. His overall profit is

Logic-based DI & Mathematical Reasoning

Data Interpretation and Logical Reasoning · PYQ 2022

Data

Pulak, Qasim, Ritesh, and Suresh participated in a tournament comprising of eight rounds. In each round, they formed two pairs, with each of them being in exactly one pair. The only restriction in the pairing was that the pairs would change in successive rounds. For example, if Pulak formed a pair with Qasim in the first round, then he would have to form a pair with Ritesh or Suresh in the second round. He would be free to pair with Qasim again in the third round. In each round, each pair decided whether to play the game in that round or not. If they decided not to play, then no money was exchanged between them. If they decided to play, they had to bet either ₹1 or ₹2 in that round. For example, if they chose to bet ₹2, then the player winning the game got ₹2 from the one losing the game.

At the beginning of the tournament, the players had ₹10 each. The following table shows partial information about the amounts that the players had at the end of each of the eight rounds. It shows every time a player had ₹10 at the end of a round, as well as every time, at the end of a round, a player had either the minimum or the maximum amount that he would have had across the eight rounds. For example, Suresh had ₹10 at the end of Rounds 1, 3, and 8 and not after any of the other rounds. The maximum amount that he had at the end of any round was ₹13 (at the end of Round 5), and the minimum amount he had at the end of any round was ₹8 (at the end of Round 2). At the end of all other rounds, he must have had either ₹9, ₹11, or ₹12.

It was also known that Pulak and Qasim had the same amount of money with them at the end of Round 4.

	Pulak	Qasim	Ritesh	Suresh
Round 1		₹8	₹10	₹10
Round 2	₹13	₹10		₹8
Round 3				₹10
Round 4
Round 5	₹10	₹10		₹13
Round 6
Round 7		₹12	₹4
Round 8	₹13			₹10

How many games were played with a bet of ₹2?

Linear Equations & Word Problems

Quantitative Ability · PYQ 2017

If a and b are integers of opposite signs such that (a+3)^2:b^2=9:1 and (a-1)^2:(b-1)^2=4:1, then the ratio a^2:b^2 is

RC — Specific Detail & Stated Fact

Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension · PYQ 2021

Passage

It has been said that knowledge, or the problem of knowledge, is the scandal of philosophy. The scandal is philosophy’s apparent inability to show how, when and why we can be sure that we know something or, indeed, that we know anything. Philosopher Michael Williams writes: ‘Is it possible to obtain knowledge at all? This problem is pressing because there are powerful arguments, some very ancient, for the conclusion that it is not . . . Scepticism is the skeleton in Western rationalism’s closet’. While it is not clear that the scandal matters to anyone but philosophers, philosophers point out that it should matter to everyone, at least given a certain conception of knowledge. For, they explain, unless we can ground our claims to knowledge as such, which is to say, distinguish it from mere opinion, superstition, fantasy, wishful thinking, ideology, illusion or delusion, then the actions we take on the basis of presumed knowledge – boarding an airplane, swallowing a pill, finding someone guilty of a crime – will be irrational and unjustifiable.

That is all quite serious-sounding but so also are the rattlings of the skeleton: that is, the sceptic’s contention that we cannot be sure that we know anything – at least not if we think of knowledge as something like having a correct mental representation of reality, and not if we think of reality as something like things-as-they-are-in-themselves, independent of our perceptions, ideas or descriptions. For, the sceptic will note, since reality, under that conception of it, is outside our ken (we cannot catch a glimpse of things-in-themselves around the corner of our own eyes; we cannot form an idea of reality that floats above the processes of our conceiving it), we have no way to compare our mental representations with things-as-they-are-in-themselves and therefore no way to determine whether they are correct or incorrect. Thus the sceptic may repeat (rattling loudly), you cannot be sure you ‘know’ something or anything at all – at least not, he may add (rattling softly before disappearing), if that is the way you conceive ‘knowledge’.

There are a number of ways to handle this situation. The most common is to ignore it. Most people outside the academy – and, indeed, most of us inside it – are unaware of or unperturbed by the philosophical scandal of knowledge and go about our lives without too many epistemic anxieties. We hold our beliefs and presumptive knowledges more or less confidently, usually depending on how we acquired them (I saw it with my own eyes; I heard it on Fox News; a guy at the office told me) and how broadly and strenuously they seem to be shared or endorsed by various relevant people: experts and authorities, friends and family members, colleagues and associates. And we examine our convictions more or less closely, explain them more or less extensively, and defend them more or less vigorously, usually depending on what seems to be at stake for ourselves and/or other people and what resources are available for reassuring ourselves or making our beliefs credible to others (look, it’s right here on the page; add up the figures yourself; I happen to be a heart specialist).

The author discusses all of the following arguments in the passage, EXCEPT: