NinetynineCAT 2025 Slot 2 VARC RC Passage 1 Q2–Q5
A reading comprehension passage from the Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VARC) section of CAT 2025 Slot 2, with 4 questions (RC · Arts & Culture). Answers are CAT's official key.
The passage
The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.
This book takes the position that setting in literature is more than just backdrop, that important insight into literary texts can be made by paying close attention to how authors craft place, as well as to how place functions in a narrative. The authors included in this reference work engage deeply with either real or imagined geographies. They care about how human decisions have shaped landscapes and how landscapes have shaped human practices and values. Some of the best writing is highly vivid, employing the language of the senses because this is the primary means through which humans know physical space.
Literature can offer valuable perspectives on physical and cultural geography. Unlike scientific reports, a literary narrative can provide the emotional component missing from the scientific record. In human experience, geographical places have a spiritual or emotional component in addition to and as part of a physical layout and topography. This emotional component, although subjective, is no less "real" than a surveyor's map. Human consciousness of place is experienced in a multi-modal manner. Histories of places live on in many forms, one of which is the human memory or imagination.
Both real and imaginary landscapes provide insight into the human experience of place. The pursuit of such a topic speaks to the valuable knowledge produced from bridging disciplines and combining material from both the arts and the sciences to better understand the human condition. The perspectives that most concern cultural geographers are often those regarding movement and migration, cultivation of natural resources, and organization of space. The latter two reflect concerns of the built environment, a topic shared with the field of architectural study. Many of these concerns are also reflected in work sociologists do. Scholars from literary studies can contribute an aesthetic dimension to what might otherwise be a purely ideological approach.
Literature can bring together material that spans different branches of science. For example, a literary description of place may involve not only the environment and geography but the noises and quality of light, or how people from different races or classes can experience the same place in different ways linked to those racial or class disparities. Literary texts can also account for the way in which absence—of other people, animals, and so on—affects a human observer or inhabitant. Both literary and scientific approaches to place are necessary, working in unison, to achieve a complete record of an environment. It is important to note that the interdisciplinary nature of this work teaches us that landscapes are not static, that they are not unchanged by human culture. At least part of their identity derives from the people who inhabit them and from the way space can alter and inspire human perspective. The intersection of scientific and literary expression that happens in the study of literary geography is of prime importance due to the complexity of the personal and political ways that humans experience place.
This book takes the position that setting in literature is more than just backdrop, that important insight into literary texts can be made by paying close attention to how authors craft place, as well as to how place functions in a narrative. The authors included in this reference work engage deeply with either real or imagined geographies. They care about how human decisions have shaped landscapes and how landscapes have shaped human practices and values. Some of the best writing is highly vivid, employing the language of the senses because this is the primary means through which humans know physical space.
Literature can offer valuable perspectives on physical and cultural geography. Unlike scientific reports, a literary narrative can provide the emotional component missing from the scientific record. In human experience, geographical places have a spiritual or emotional component in addition to and as part of a physical layout and topography. This emotional component, although subjective, is no less "real" than a surveyor's map. Human consciousness of place is experienced in a multi-modal manner. Histories of places live on in many forms, one of which is the human memory or imagination.
Both real and imaginary landscapes provide insight into the human experience of place. The pursuit of such a topic speaks to the valuable knowledge produced from bridging disciplines and combining material from both the arts and the sciences to better understand the human condition. The perspectives that most concern cultural geographers are often those regarding movement and migration, cultivation of natural resources, and organization of space. The latter two reflect concerns of the built environment, a topic shared with the field of architectural study. Many of these concerns are also reflected in work sociologists do. Scholars from literary studies can contribute an aesthetic dimension to what might otherwise be a purely ideological approach.
Literature can bring together material that spans different branches of science. For example, a literary description of place may involve not only the environment and geography but the noises and quality of light, or how people from different races or classes can experience the same place in different ways linked to those racial or class disparities. Literary texts can also account for the way in which absence—of other people, animals, and so on—affects a human observer or inhabitant. Both literary and scientific approaches to place are necessary, working in unison, to achieve a complete record of an environment. It is important to note that the interdisciplinary nature of this work teaches us that landscapes are not static, that they are not unchanged by human culture. At least part of their identity derives from the people who inhabit them and from the way space can alter and inspire human perspective. The intersection of scientific and literary expression that happens in the study of literary geography is of prime importance due to the complexity of the personal and political ways that humans experience place.
Question 2
All of the following statements, if false, would contradict the arguments in the passage, EXCEPT that:
- Ahighly vivid writing, employing the language of the senses, can capture the multi-modal manner in which humans experience places.
- Bdescriptions of places do not need satellite imagery or other visual aids to give a "real" sense of the place.
- Cliterature provides us with deep insights into the ways in which movement and migration affect physical geography.
- Dhumans do not interact with places in subjective, emotional ways because places are only physical topography.
Answer: (D) humans do not interact with places in subjective, emotional ways because places are only physical topography. RC · Arts & Culture MCQ
Solution
- We need the statement whose falsity would agree with the passage, i.e. a statement that itself goes against the passage.
- The passage says places have a \"spiritual or emotional component\" that is \"no less real than a surveyor's map\". Option D claims humans do not interact with places emotionally, so D being false is exactly the author's view.
- A (vivid, multi-modal writing), B (literary description gives a real sense of place) and C (literature informs geography, including movement and migration) are in line with the passage, so their falsity would contradict it.
Shortcut. In an \"if false, contradicts ... EXCEPT\" question, look for the option that already opposes the passage.
Question 3
Which one of the following is a valid conclusion to draw from the author's statement that, "The pursuit of such a topic speaks to the valuable knowledge produced from bridging disciplines and combining material from both the arts and the sciences to better understand the human condition."?
- AA comprehensive understanding of the valuable knowledge produced by the arts and sciences can best be achieved by studying the human condition.
- BThe literary descriptions of the emotions we experience in the places we visit can contribute to our understanding of the arts and sciences.
- CA comprehensive bridging of the human condition can best be achieved by a disciplined pursuit of human understanding.
- DA comprehensive understanding of the human condition can best be achieved by combining the findings of disciplines from the arts and the sciences.
Answer: (D) A comprehensive understanding of the human condition can best be achieved by combining the findings of disciplines from the arts and the sciences. RC · Arts & Culture MCQ
Solution
- The line says that bridging disciplines and combining the arts and sciences produces knowledge \"to better understand the human condition\".
- D restates this: the human condition is best understood by combining arts and sciences.
- A reverses cause and goal (studying the human condition to understand arts and sciences); B also reverses it; C is a garbled phrase with no link to combining disciplines.
Question 4
Which one of the following is not true of the argument in the second paragraph?
- ALiterary accounts of places can be filled with histories, manifested as memory or imagination.
- BThe spiritual experience of a place may be considered as real as the physical experience of it.
- CAnalysing the literary descriptions of a place can give us a sense of how people relate emotionally to it.
- DThe emotional and spiritual experience of a place can replace a surveyor's map.
Answer: (D) The emotional and spiritual experience of a place can replace a surveyor's map. RC · Arts & Culture MCQ
Solution
- Paragraph 2 says the emotional component of place, though subjective, \"is no less 'real' than a surveyor's map\" and that histories live on in memory or imagination.
- That makes the emotional experience equally real, not a replacement for the map; the passage elsewhere says literary and scientific approaches work \"in unison\". So D is not true.
- A (histories in memory or imagination), B (spiritual as real as physical) and C (literature conveys emotional relation to place) are all supported.
Question 5
The author uses the example of the literary description of place to illustrate that:
- Aliterature can convey how different people experience the same place differently.
- Barchitects use diverse methods to calibrate the noises and lights of a given place.
- Cthe absence of other people, animals, and so on in a place can profoundly affect its inhabitants.
- Dscientific approaches to place are more accurate than literary ones.
Answer: (A) literature can convey how different people experience the same place differently. RC · Arts & Culture MCQ
Solution
- The example says a literary description of place can include noise and light, \"or how people from different races or classes can experience the same place in different ways\".
- The point being illustrated is that literature captures dimensions of human experience of place, such as different people experiencing the same place differently: A.
- C (absence) is a separate, follow-on point (\"can also account for\"), B brings in architects, and D contradicts the passage's call for both approaches.