CAT VA-RC 2017 Slot 2: RC Passage 1

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RC Passage

Direction for the questions 1 to 6: The passage below is accompanied by a set of six questions. Choose the best answer to each question.

Creativity is at once our most precious resource and our most inexhaustible one. As anyone who has ever spent any time with children knows, every single human being is born creative; every human being is innately endowed with the ability to combine and recombine data, perceptions, materials and ideas, and devise new ways of thinking and doing. What fosters creativity? More than anything else: the presence of other creative people. The big myth is that creativity is the province of great individual geniuses. In fact creativity is a social process. Our biggest creative breakthroughs come when people learn from, compete with, and collaborate with other people.

Cities are the true fonts of creativity... With their diverse populations, dense social networks, and public spaces where people can meet spontaneously and serendipitously, they spark and catalyze new ideas. With their infrastructure for finance, organization and trade, they allow those ideas to be swiftly actualized.

As for what staunches creativity, that’s easy, if ironic. It’s the very institutions that we build to manage, exploit and perpetuate the fruits of creativity — our big bureaucracies, and sad to say, too many of our schools. Creativity is disruptive; schools and organizations are regimented, standardized and stultifying.

The education expert Sir Ken Robinson points to a 1968 study reporting on a group of 1,600 children who were tested over time for their ability to think in out-of-the-box ways. When the children were between 3 and 5 years old, 98 percent achieved positive scores. When they were 8 to 10, only 32 percent passed the same test, and only 10 percent at 13 to 15. When 280,000 25-year-olds took the test, just 2 percent passed. By the time we are adults, our creativity has been wrung out of us.

I once asked the great urbanist Jane Jacobs what makes some places more creative than others. She said, essentially, that the question was an easy one. All cities, she said, were filled with creative people; that’s our default state as people. But some cities had more than their shares of leaders, people and institutions that blocked out that creativity. She called them “squelchers.”

Creativity (or the lack of it) follows the same general contours of the great socio-economic divide - our rising inequality - that plagues us. According to my own estimates, roughly a third of us across the United States, and perhaps as much as half of us in our most creative cities - are able to do work which engages our creative faculties to some extent, whether as artists, musicians, writers, techies, innovators, entrepreneurs, doctors, lawyers, journalists or educators - those of us who work with our minds. That leaves a group that I term ‘the other 66 percent,” who toil in low-wage rote and rotten jobs — if they have jobs at all — in which their creativity is subjugated, ignored or wasted.

Creativity itself is not in danger. It’s flourishing is all around us - in science and technology, arts and culture, in our rapidly revitalizing cities. But we still have a long way to go if we want to build a truly creative society that supports and rewards the creativity of each and every one of us.

Full RC Video Analysis
RC Line-wise Explanation

Paragraph 1

"Creativity is at once our most precious resource and our most inexhaustible one."

Explanation: Creativity is both extremely valuable and something we never run out of.

"As anyone who has ever spent any time with children knows, every single human being is born creative; every human being is innately endowed with the ability to combine and recombine data, perceptions, materials and ideas, and devise new ways of thinking and doing."

Explanation: Just like we observe in children, all humans naturally have the ability to think in new ways and come up with original ideas.

"What fosters creativity? More than anything else: the presence of other creative people."

Explanation: The best way to encourage creativity is by being around other creative individuals.

"The big myth is that creativity is the province of great individual geniuses."

Explanation: It's a common misconception that only a few brilliant individuals possess creativity.

"In fact creativity is a social process."

Explanation: Actually, creativity often happens when people interact with one another.

"Our biggest creative breakthroughs come when people learn from, compete with, and collaborate with other people."

Explanation: The most significant innovations usually result from people sharing ideas, challenging each other, and working together.

Paragraph 2

"Cities are the true fonts of creativity..."

Explanation: Cities are the main sources or origins of creative energy.

"With their diverse populations, dense social networks, and public spaces where people can meet spontaneously and serendipitously, they spark and catalyze new ideas."

Explanation: The mix of different people, close connections, and random social interactions in cities help generate new ideas.

"With their infrastructure for finance, organization and trade, they allow those ideas to be swiftly actualized."

Explanation: Cities also have the systems—like finance and business—that help quickly turn ideas into reality.

Paragraph 3

"As for what staunches creativity, that’s easy, if ironic."

Explanation: What stops creativity is clear, and it’s ironically tied to what was supposed to support it.

"It’s the very institutions that we build to manage, exploit and perpetuate the fruits of creativity — our big bureaucracies, and sad to say, too many of our schools."

Explanation: Institutions like large bureaucracies and many schools, which should support creativity, often end up suppressing it.

"Creativity is disruptive; schools and organizations are regimented, standardized and stultifying."

Explanation: Creativity challenges the norm, while schools and organizations tend to be rigid, uniform, and dull, making them unfriendly to creative thought.

Paragraph 4

"The education expert Sir Ken Robinson points to a 1968 study reporting on a group of 1,600 children who were tested over time for their ability to think in out-of-the-box ways."

Explanation: Sir Ken Robinson refers to a 1968 study that measured the creativity of 1,600 children over several years.

"When the children were between 3 and 5 years old, 98 percent achieved positive scores."

Explanation: Almost all young children (aged 3–5) showed high levels of creativity.

"When they were 8 to 10, only 32 percent passed the same test, and only 10 percent at 13 to 15."

Explanation: As the children grew older, their creativity levels dropped sharply.

"When 280,000 25-year-olds took the test, just 2 percent passed."

Explanation: Among adults, creativity was nearly gone—only a tiny fraction showed out-of-the-box thinking.

"By the time we are adults, our creativity has been wrung out of us."

Explanation: The system drains creativity from people as they grow up.

Paragraph 5

"I once asked the great urbanist Jane Jacobs what makes some places more creative than others."

Explanation: The author consulted urban planning expert Jane Jacobs about why some places are more creative than others.

"She said, essentially, that the question was an easy one."

Explanation: Jacobs believed the answer to this question was simple.

"All cities, she said, were filled with creative people; that’s our default state as people."

Explanation: She believed that everyone is naturally creative, and cities are full of such people.

"But some cities had more than their shares of leaders, people and institutions that blocked out that creativity. She called them 'squelchers.'"

Explanation: However, in some cities, people and institutions suppress creativity; she labeled them “squelchers.”

Paragraph 6

"Creativity (or the lack of it) follows the same general contours of the great socio-economic divide - our rising inequality - that plagues us."

Explanation: Creativity is unevenly distributed across society, much like wealth and opportunity.

"According to my own estimates, roughly a third of us across the United States, and perhaps as much as half of us in our most creative cities - are able to do work which engages our creative faculties to some extent, whether as artists, musicians, writers, techies, innovators, entrepreneurs, doctors, lawyers, journalists or educators - those of us who work with our minds."

Explanation: The author estimates that only about a third to half of people in the U.S. work in jobs that use their creativity—mainly in knowledge or idea-based professions.

"That leaves a group that I term ‘the other 66 percent,’ who toil in low-wage rote and rotten jobs — if they have jobs at all — in which their creativity is subjugated, ignored or wasted."

Explanation: The remaining majority work in low-paying, repetitive jobs that don’t make use of their creative potential.

Paragraph 7

"Creativity itself is not in danger."

Explanation: Creativity as a human trait is not going away.

"It’s flourishing is all around us - in science and technology, arts and culture, in our rapidly revitalizing cities."

Explanation: We see creativity thriving in many fields and places, such as tech, art, and modern cities.

"But we still have a long way to go if we want to build a truly creative society that supports and rewards the creativity of each and every one of us."

Explanation: However, we still need to do a lot more to ensure that everyone's creative potential is recognized and encouraged.

RC Paragraph Explanation

Paragraph 1 Summary

Creativity is innate in every human and thrives best in the presence of others. While often thought to belong to individual geniuses, it is actually a collaborative and social process.

Paragraph 2 Summary

Cities foster creativity through their diversity, dense social interactions, and infrastructure. These features allow new ideas to emerge and be quickly turned into real-world innovations.

Paragraph 3 Summary

Ironically, the very institutions designed to preserve creativity often suppress it. Bureaucracies and schools tend to value order and routine over disruptive, creative thinking.

Paragraph 4 Summary

A study shows that creativity declines sharply as children age, indicating that our systems drain creativity rather than nurture it. By adulthood, most people lose their creative edge.

Paragraph 5 Summary

Jane Jacobs believed that everyone is naturally creative, but creativity is often blocked by restrictive leaders and institutions, which she called “squelchers.”

Paragraph 6 Summary

Creativity is unevenly distributed, with only a fraction of people working in jobs that engage their minds. A large portion of the population has their creativity wasted in low-paying, monotonous jobs.

Paragraph 7 Summary

Although creativity is thriving in many sectors, we still need to create a society that allows everyone’s creativity to be expressed and rewarded.

RC Quick Table Summary
Paragraph NumberMain Idea
Paragraph 1Creativity is natural and best nurtured through social interaction.
Paragraph 2Cities provide the ideal environment for creativity to flourish.
Paragraph 3Institutions like schools and bureaucracies often suppress creativity.
Paragraph 4Creativity declines with age due to rigid systems.
Paragraph 5Creativity is common, but often blocked by societal "squelchers."
Paragraph 6Most people lack creative job opportunities, widening inequality.
Paragraph 7Creativity thrives but needs broader support across society.

RC Questions

Ques 1. In the author’s view, cities promote human creativity for all the following reasons EXCEPT that they

Correct Answer: (D) Detailed explanation by Wordpandit: Refer to the lines: What fosters creativity? More than anything else: the presence of other creative people. The big myth is that creativity is the province of great individual geniuses. In fact creativity is a social process. Our biggest creative breakthroughs come when people learn from, compete with, and collaborate with other people
..Cities are the true fonts of creativity... With their diverse populations, dense social networks, and public spaces where people can meet spontaneously and serendipitously, they spark and catalyze new ideas. With their infrastructure for finance, organization and trade, they allow those ideas to be swiftly actualized.The strategy to approach this question’s answer should be that of ELIMINATION of incorrect options. Option A talks about public spaces where people can meet. Option B talks about where people can catalyze new ideas. Option C mentions providing good infrastructure to convert those ideas to reality. All these three points have been discussed in the second paragraph that starts with 'cities are true fronts of creativity'. Though Option D may appear to be a natural conclusion, it has not been specifically mentioned anywhere that cultural activities can be accessed in cities. It is important to stick to the facts provided in the passage to answer this question correctly. The question is asking about the author’s view. Hence Option D is the correct answer.

Ques 2. The author uses 'ironic’ in the third paragraph to point out that

Correct Answer: (B) Detailed explanation by Wordpandit: To understand the question clearly, it is important to know what makes something ironic. A situation can be called ironic when the outcome of an action turns out to be the opposite of what was originally expected or desired, thus the whole exercise defeating its core-purpose or intention. Now, in the third paragraph, the author writes, “As for what staunches creativity, that’s easy, if ironic. It’s the very institutions that we build to manage, exploit and perpetuate the fruits of creativity..” – which hints at the fact that the institutions that were supposed to encourage and nurture the growth of creative pursuits unfortunately tend to stifle or restrain creativity. The author continues that “creativity is disruptive; schools and organizations are regimented, standardized and stultifying.” Here the word “disruptive” denotes to a change in set processes; a shift from routine. However, schools and organizations are strictly organized and controlled which stifles or hampers the free rein required to be creative. Hence Option B is the correct answer.

Ques 3. The central idea of this passage is that

Correct Answer: (A) Detailed explanation by Wordpandit: Refer to the lines: But in Chinese maps, the Emperor, who lived in the north of the country was always put at the top of the map, with everyone else, his loyal subjects, looking up towards him. “In Chinese culture the Emperor looks south because it's where the winds come from, it's a good direction. North is not very good but you are in a position of subjection to the emperor, so you look up to him,” says Brotton.The Correct Answer can be directly derived from the lines above. The reason for the north being placed at the top is the fact you looked up to the Emperor; it was a mark of respect. Options A and D find no mention in the passage. Option C explains the point of the view of the Emperor but it is not the reason for north being at the top; north was at the top as a mark of respect and showing that the citizens respect the emperor.

Ques 4. Jane Jacobs believed that cities that are more creative

Correct Answer: (C) Detailed explanation by Wordpandit: In the fifth paragraph, Jane Jacobs mentions that, ‘all cities, were filled with creative people..-.. but some cities had more than their shares of leaders, people and institutions that blocked out that creativity’. Also, from the nomenclature of 'squelchers', we can understand that she considers leaders to have the power to encourage or stifle creativity. Hence it can be derived that cities that are more creative have leaders and institutions that do not block creativity. Option C is the correct answer.

Ques 5. The 1968 study is used here to show that

Correct Answer: (B) Detailed explanation by Wordpandit: Refer to the context: The education expert Sir Ken Robinson points to a 1968 study reporting on a group of 1,600 children who were tested over time for their ability to think in out-of-the-box ways. When the children were between 3 and 5 years old, 98 percent achieved positive scores. When they were 8 to 10, only 32 percent passed the same test, and only 10 percent at 13 to 15. When 280,000 25-year-olds took the test, just 2 percent passed. By the time we are adults, our creativity has been wrung out of us.Option A says that children become more creative as they get older. However, this statement is the exact opposite of what has been discussed in the passage. Option B has been thoroughly supported by the author. The third paragraph specifies that schools were supposed to foster creativity, but instead they are stifling it.. The last sentence of the fourth paragraph points out that “By the time we are adults, our creativity has been wrung out of us.” Option C correlates the decline of creativity in children to learning more. But, in the third paragraph the author blames regimented schools as the reason for what staunches creativity, not learning. Option D can be eliminated as there is not mention in the entire passage about the impact of technology on creativity. Hence Option B is the correct answer.

Ques 6. The author’s conclusions about the most ‘creative cities’ in the US (paragraph 6) are based on his assumption that

Correct Answer: (A) Detailed explanation by Wordpandit: The keyword in the question is ‘assumption’. The author has assumed something which makes him consider certain cities in the US more creative than others. In the sixth paragraph, the author considers that creative faculties are engaged by: “
artists, musicians, writers, techies, innovators, entrepreneurs, doctors, lawyers, journalists or educators - those of us who work with our minds”. As per the author, the remaining 66% of the people either do not get to, or do not need to be creative. It can be inferred that according to the author, those who work with their hands, and not their minds, are not doing creative work. Hence Option A is the correct answer.

Actual CAT VA-RC 2017 Slot 2: Question-wise Index

Reading ComprehensionWords from the Passage
RC Passage 1 (Q 1 to 6) Must-Learn Words (Passage 1)
RC Passage 2 (Q 7 to 12) Must-Learn Words (Passage 2)
RC Passage 3 (Q 13 to 18) Must-Learn Words (Passage 3)
RC Passage 4(Q 19 to 21) Must-Learn Words (Passage 4)
RC Passage 5 (Q 21 to 24) Must-Learn Words (Passage 5)
Verbal Ability
Ques 25 (Paragraph Summary) Ques 26 (Paragraph Summary)
Ques 27 (Paragraph Summary) Ques 28 (Para-jumble)
Ques 29 (Para-jumble) Ques 30 (Para-jumble)
Ques 31 (Para-jumble) Ques 32 (Misfit/Odd one out)
Ques 33 (Misfit/Odd one out) Ques 34 (Misfit/Odd one out)

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