CAT 2022 Slot 2 VARC RC Passage 1 Q1–Q4

A reading comprehension passage from the Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VARC) section of CAT 2022 Slot 2, with 4 questions (RC · Science & Technology). Answers are CAT's official key.

The passage

The passage below is accompanied by a set of questions. Choose the best answer to each question.

[Octopuses are] misfits in their own extended families . . . They belong to the Mollusca class Cephalopoda. But they don't look like their cousins at all. Other molluscs include sea snails, sea slugs, bivalves - most are shelled invertebrates with a dorsal foot. Cephalopods are all arms, and can be as tiny as 1 centimetre and as large at 30 feet. Some of them have brains the size of a walnut, which is large for an invertebrate. . . .

It makes sense for these molluscs to have added protection in the form of a higher cognition; they don't have a shell covering them, and pretty much everything feeds on cephalopods, including humans. But how did cephalopods manage to secure their own invisibility cloak? Cephalopods fire from multiple cylinders to achieve this in varying degrees from species to species. There are four main catalysts - chromatophores, iridophores, papillae and leucophores. . . .

[Chromatophores] are organs on their bodies that contain pigment sacs, which have red, yellow and brown pigment granules. These sacs have a network of radial muscles, meaning muscles arranged in a circle radiating outwards. These are connected to the brain by a nerve. When the cephalopod wants to change colour, the brain carries an electrical impulse through the nerve to the muscles that expand outwards, pulling open the sacs to display the colours on the skin. Why these three colours? Because these are the colours the light reflects at the depths they live in (the rest is absorbed before it reaches those depths). . . .

Well, what about other colours? Cue the iridophores. Think of a second level of skin that has thin stacks of cells. These can reflect light back at different wavelengths. . . . It's using the same properties that we've seen in hologram stickers, or rainbows on puddles of oil. You move your head and you see a different colour. The sticker isn't doing anything but reflecting light - it's your movement that's changing the appearance of the colour. This property of holograms, oil and other such surfaces is called "iridescence". . . .

Papillae are sections of the skin that can be deformed to make a texture bumpy. Even humans possess them (goosebumps) but cannot use them in the manner that cephalopods can. For instance, the use of these cells is how an octopus can wrap itself over a rock and appear jagged or how a squid or cuttlefish can imitate the look of a coral reef by growing miniature towers on its skin. It actually matches the texture of the substrate it chooses.

Finally, the leucophores: According to a paper, published in Nature, cuttlefish and octopuses possess an additional type of reflector cell called a leucophore. They are cells that scatter full spectrum light so that they appear white in a similar way that a polar bear's fur appears white. Leucophores will also reflect any filtered light shown on them . . . If the water appears blue at a certain depth, the octopuses and cuttlefish can appear blue; if the water appears green, they appear green, and so on and so forth.

Question 1

All of the following are reasons for octopuses being "misfits" EXCEPT that they:
  1. A
    have several arms.
  2. B
    are consumed by humans and other animals.
  3. C
    do not possess an outer protective shell.
  4. D
    exhibit higher intelligence than other molluscs.

Answer: (B) are consumed by humans and other animals. RC · Science & Technology MCQ

Solution

  1. The passage calls octopuses misfits because they do not look like their mollusc cousins: they are all arms (A), they lack the shell most molluscs have (C), and they have unusually large brains for invertebrates (D).
  2. Being eaten by humans and other animals (B) is mentioned only to explain why higher cognition is useful protection; it is not a way in which they differ from their relatives.
  3. So B is not a reason for their being misfits.

Question 2

Based on the passage, we can infer that all of the following statements, if true, would weaken the camouflaging adeptness of Cephalopods EXCEPT:
  1. A
    the hydrostatic pressure at the depths at which Cephalopods reside renders radial muscle movements difficult.
  2. B
    the temperature of water at the depths at which Cephalopods reside renders the transmission of neural signals difficult.
  3. C
    light reflects the colours red, green, and yellow at the depths at which Cephalopods reside.
  4. D
    the number of chromatophores in Cephalopods is half the number of iridophores and leucophores.

Answer: (D) the number of chromatophores in Cephalopods is half the number of iridophores and leucophores. RC · Science & Technology MCQ

Solution

  1. Camouflage depends on the brain sending an impulse through a nerve to radial muscles that open pigment sacs of red, yellow and brown, the colours light reflects at those depths.
  2. A (muscles cannot move), B (nerve signals impaired) and C (the light at depth is not the red/yellow/brown the pigments match) each break a link in this mechanism, so each weakens camouflage.
  3. D only compares cell counts; the passage never ties camouflage skill to how many chromatophores there are relative to other cells, so it does not weaken it.

Shortcut. Look for the option that attacks no step of the described mechanism.

Question 3

Based on the passage, it can be inferred that camouflaging techniques in an octopus are most dissimilar to those in:
  1. A
    polar bears
  2. B
    sea snails
  3. C
    squids
  4. D
    cuttlefish

Answer: (B) sea snails RC · Science & Technology MCQ

Solution

  1. Squids and cuttlefish are named as using the same tools (papillae, leucophores), and polar bears share the white-scattering principle of leucophores.
  2. Sea snails are listed among the shelled molluscs that octopuses do not resemble; nothing suggests they camouflage this way at all.
  3. So octopus camouflage is most dissimilar to that of sea snails.

Question 4

Which one of the following statements is not true about the camouflaging ability of Cephalopods?
  1. A
    Cephalopods can take on the colour of their predator.
  2. B
    Cephalopods can blend into the colour of their surroundings.
  3. C
    Cephalopods can change their colour.
  4. D
    Cephalopods can change their texture.

Answer: (A) Cephalopods can take on the colour of their predator. RC · Science & Technology MCQ

Solution

  1. The passage shows cephalopods change colour (chromatophores, iridophores), change texture (papillae), and take on the colour of the surrounding water (leucophores reflect blue or green light).
  2. Nowhere does it say they mimic the colour of a predator; they match their environment, so A is not supported.

Same concept in other years

See every question on Spotting the one claim the passage does not support — science and technology passages.

See every question on Drawing out what the passage implies but never states — science and technology passages.

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