NinetynineCAT 2024 Slot 3 VARC Q20 Para Summary
Question 20 of the Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VARC) section, CAT 2024 Slot 3, with CAT's official answer and a worked solution.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
When the tradwife puts on that georgic, pinstriped dress, she is not just admiring the visual cues of a fantastical past. She takes these dreams of storybook bliss literally, tracing them backward in time until she reaches a logical conclusion that satisfies her. And by doing so, she ends up delivering an unhappy reminder of just how much our lives consist of artifice and playacting. The tradwife outrages people because of her deliberately regressive ideals. And yet her behaviour is, on some level, indistinguishable from the nontradwife's. The tradwife's trollish genius is to beat us at our own dress-up game. By insisting that the idyllic cottage daydream should be real, right down to the primitive gender roles, she leaves others feeling hollow, cheated. The hullabaloo and headaches she causes may be the price we pay for taking too many things at face value: our just deserts, served Instagram-perfect by a manicured hand on a gorgeous ceramic dish, with fat, mouthwatering maraschino cherries on top.
When the tradwife puts on that georgic, pinstriped dress, she is not just admiring the visual cues of a fantastical past. She takes these dreams of storybook bliss literally, tracing them backward in time until she reaches a logical conclusion that satisfies her. And by doing so, she ends up delivering an unhappy reminder of just how much our lives consist of artifice and playacting. The tradwife outrages people because of her deliberately regressive ideals. And yet her behaviour is, on some level, indistinguishable from the nontradwife's. The tradwife's trollish genius is to beat us at our own dress-up game. By insisting that the idyllic cottage daydream should be real, right down to the primitive gender roles, she leaves others feeling hollow, cheated. The hullabaloo and headaches she causes may be the price we pay for taking too many things at face value: our just deserts, served Instagram-perfect by a manicured hand on a gorgeous ceramic dish, with fat, mouthwatering maraschino cherries on top.
- AThe tradwife, with her vintage dress and traditional roles, highlights the superficiality of modern life and challenges current societal norms.
- BThe tradwife's commitment to outdated gender roles and retro fashion critiques the superficiality of today's societal ideals.
- CBy promoting an idealized past, the tradwife exposes the artifice of contemporary values and mocks societal norms.
- DThe tradwife's vintage dress and adherence to traditional roles reveal the artificial nature of modern life and its superficial values.
Answer: (A) The tradwife, with her vintage dress and traditional roles, highlights the superficiality of modern life and challenges current societal norms. Para Summary MCQ
Solution
- The passage says the tradwife, by literally living out a storybook past (vintage dress, primitive gender roles), reminds us how much of our lives is 'artifice and playacting', and that she 'outrages people' and 'beats us at our own dress-up game'.
- A carries both ideas: she highlights the superficiality of modern life and, by outraging people, challenges current norms.
- D drops the provocation and wrongly credits the dress and roles themselves with the revelation; B makes it a deliberate critique; C says she mocks norms, which overstates her 'trollish' effect.