CAT Para Summary Questions & Solutions

A sample of real CAT Para Summary past-year questions, each with a worked solution and the correct answer highlighted. AthenaPrep has 96 Para Summary questions in all — sign up free to practise them timed.

Q1.CAT 2025
The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.

The return to the tailor is the juxtaposition of three key things for the mindful Indian shopper. The first is the conscious shift away from the homogeneity of fast fashion, the idea of a hundred other people owning exactly the same Zara trench coat or H&M pleated skirt. The second is an actual understanding of the waste behind the fast fashion market, and wanting not to contribute to that anymore. The last is the shift toward customisation and fit—the idea of having imaginations brought to life and to have them fit exactly; without paying exorbitant rates for that bespoke tailoring. For the individual with a keen fashion sense and a genuine desire to move away from the waste and uniformity of fast fashion without paying the premium for it that indie brands would invariably demand, the tailor is the perfect crossover.
- The mindful Indian shoppers are returning to the tailor with a genuine desire to wear clothes which are less expensive, fit them well and are yet fashionable.
- The mindful Indian shopper is shifting away from convenience and uniformity of clothing, and waste in fashion, to customisation and less exorbitantly priced clothing.
- All Indian shoppers are opting for customisation and a shift away from homogeneity over expensive clothing brands like Zara and H&M.
- In the Indian retail market, people believe that expensive branded clothes are wasteful and, therefore, are returning to the neighbourhood tailor.
Q2.CAT 2024
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.

Recent important scientific findings have emerged from crossing the boundaries of scientific fields. They stem from physicists collaborating with biologists, sociologists and others, to answer questions about our world. But physicists and their potential collaborators often find their cultures out of sync. For one, physicists often discard a lot of information while extracting broad patterns; for other scientists, information is not readily disposed. Further, many non-physicists are uncomfortable with mathematical models. Still, the desire to work on something new and different is real, and there are clear benefits from the collision of views.
- Despite differences in their research styles, physicists’ research collaborations with scholars from other disciplines have yielded important research findings.
- Large data sets and mathematical models in physics research combined with the research methods of non-physicist collaborators have yielded important scientific findings.
- The desire to diversify their research and answer important questions has led to several collaborations between physicists and other social scientists.
- Physicists have successfully buried their differences on research methods applied in other fields in their desire to find answers to baffling scientific questions.
Q3.CAT 2023
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.

Colonialism is not a modern phenomenon. World history is full of examples of one society gradually expanding by incorporating adjacent territory and settling its people on newly conquered territory. In the sixteenth century, colonialism changed decisively because of technological developments in navigation that began to connect more remote parts of the world. The modern European colonial project emerged when it became possible to move large numbers of people across the ocean and to maintain political control in spite of geographical dispersion. The term colonialism is used to describe the process of European settlement, violent dispossession and political
domination over the rest of the world, including the Americas, Australia, and parts of Africa and Asia.
- As a result of developments in navigation technology, European colonialism led to the displacement of indigenous populations and global political changes in the 16th century.
- Colonialism, conceptualized in the 16th century, allowed colonizers to expand their territories, establish settlements, and exercise political power.
- Technological advancements in navigation in the 16th century, transformed colonialism, enabling Europeans to establish settlements and exert political dominance over distant regions.
- Colonialism surged in the 16th century due to advancements in navigation, enabling British settlements abroad and global dominance.
Q4.CAT 2022
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.

There's a common idea that museum artworks are somehow timeless objects available to admire for generations to come. But many are objects of decay. Even the most venerable Old Master paintings don't escape: pigments discolour, varnishes crack, canvases warp. This challenging fact of art-world life is down to something that sounds more like a thread from a morality tale: inherent vice. Damien Hirst's iconic shark floating in a tank - entitled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living - is a work that put a spotlight on inherent vice. When he made it in 1991, Hirst got himself in a pickle by not using the right kind of pickle to preserve the giant fish. The result was that the shark began to decompose quite quickly - its preserving liquid clouding, the skin wrinkling, and an unpleasant smell wafting from the tank.
- Museums are left with the moral responsibility of restoring and preserving the artworks since artists cannot preserve their works beyond their life.
- Museums have to guard timeless art treasures from intrinsic defects such as the deterioration of paint, polish and canvas.
- The role of museums has evolved to ensure that the artworks are preserved forever in addition to guarding and displaying them.
- Artworks may not last forever; they may deteriorate with time, and the challenge is to slow down their degeneration.
Q5.CAT 2021
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Developing countries are becoming hotbeds of business innovation in much the same way as Japan did from the 1950s onwards. They are reinventing systems of production and distribution, and experimenting with entirely new business models. Why are countries that were until recently associated with cheap hands now becoming leaders in innovation? Driven by a mixture of ambition and fear they are relentlessly climbing up the value chain. Emerging-market champions have not only proved highly competitive in their own backyards, they are also going global themselves.
- Competition has driven emerging economies, once suppliers of cheap labour, to become innovators of business models that have enabled them to move up the value chain and go global.
- Innovations in production and distribution are helping emerging economies compete with countries to which they once supplied cheap labour.
- Developing countries are being forced to invent new business models which challenge the old business models, so they can remain competitive domestically.
- Production and distribution models are going through rapid innovations worldwide as developed countries are being challenged by their earlier suppliers from the developing world.
Q6.CAT 2020
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.

As Soviet power declined, the world became to some extent multipolar, and Europe strove to define an independent identity. What a journey Europe has undertaken to reach this point. It had in every century changed its internal structure and invented new ways of thinking about the nature of international order. Now at the culmination of an era, Europe, in order to participate in it, felt obliged to set aside the political mechanisms through which it had conducted its affairs for three and a half centuries. Impelled also by the desire to cushion the emergent unification of Germany, the new European Union established a common currency in 2002 and a formal political structure in 2004. It proclaimed a Europe united, whole, and free, adjusting its differences by peaceful mechanisms.
- Europe has consistently changed in keeping with the changing world order and that has culminated in a united Europe.
- The establishment of a formal political structure in Europe was hastened by the unification of Germany and the emergence of a multipolar world.
- Europe has consistently changed its internal structure to successfully adapt to the changing world order.
- Europe has chosen to lower political and economic heterogeneity, in order to adapt itself to an emerging multi-polar world.
Q7.CAT 2019
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.

Vance Packard’s The Hidden Persuaders alerted the public to the psychoanalytical techniques used by the advertising industry. Its premise was that advertising agencies were using depth interviews to identify hidden consumer motivations, which were then used to entice consumers to buy goods. Critics and reporters often wrongly assumed that Packard was writing mainly about subliminal advertising. Packard never mentioned the word subliminal, however, and devoted very little space to discussions of “subthreshold” effects. Instead, his views largely aligned with the notion that individuals do not always have access to their conscious thoughts and can be persuaded by supraliminal messages without their knowledge.
- Packard held that advertising as a ‘hidden persuasion’ understands the hidden motivations of consumers and works at the supraliminal level, though the people targeted have no awareness of being persuaded.
- Packard held that advertising as a ‘hidden persuasion’ builds on peoples’ conscious thoughts and awareness, by understanding the hidden motivations of consumers and works at the subliminal level.
- Packard argued that advertising as a ‘hidden persuasion’ works at the supraliminal level, wherein the people targeted are aware of being persuaded, after understanding the hidden motivations of consumers and works.
- Packard argued that advertising as a ‘hidden persuasion’ understands the hidden motivations of consumers and works at the subliminal level, on the subconscious level of the awareness of the people targeted.
Q8.CAT 2018
The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the author’s position.

Artificial embryo twinning is a relatively low-tech way to make clones. As the name suggests, this technique mimics the natural process that creates identical twins. In nature, twins form very early in development when the embryo splits in two. Twinning happens in the first days after egg and sperm join, while the embryo is made of just a small number of unspecialized cells. Each half of the embryo continues dividing on its own, ultimately developing into separate, complete individuals. Since they developed from the same fertilized egg, the resulting individuals are genetically identical.
- Artificial embryo twinning is low-tech and mimetic of the natural development of genetically identical twins from the embryo after fertilization.
- Artificial embryo twinning is low-tech and is close to the natural development of twins where the embryo splits into two identical twins.
- Artificial embryo twinning is low-tech unlike the natural development of identical twins from the embryo after fertilization.
- Artificial embryo twinning is just like the natural development of twins, where during fertilization twins are formed.
Q9.CAT 2017
The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the author's position.

Both Socrates and Bacon were very good at asking useful questions. In fact, Socrates is largely credited with coming up with a way of asking questions, 'the Socratic method,' which itself is at the core of the 'scientific method,' popularised by Bacon. The Socratic method disproves arguments by finding exceptions to them, and can therefore lead your opponent to a point where they admit something that contradicts their original position. In common with Socrates, Bacon stressed it was as important to disprove a theory as it was to prove one — and real-world observation and experimentation were key to achieving both aims. Bacon also saw science as a collaborative affair, with scientists working together, challenging each other.
- Both Socrates and Bacon advocated clever questioning of the opponents to disprove their arguments and theories.
- Both Socrates and Bacon advocated challenging arguments and theories by observation and experimentation.
- Both Socrates and Bacon advocated confirming arguments and theories by finding exceptions.
- Both Socrates and Bacon advocated examining arguments and theories from both sides to prove them.
Passage
Each of the following questions has a paragraph from which the last sentence has been deleted. From the given options, choose the sentence that completes the paragraph in the most appropriate way.
Q10.CAT 2007
Mma Ramotswe had a detective agency in Africa, at the foot of Kgale Hill. These were its assets; a tiny white van, two desks, two chairs, a telephone, and an old typewriter. Then there was a teapot, in which Mma Ramotswe - the only private lady detective in Botswana - brewed red bush tea. And three mugs - one for herself, one for her secretary and one for the client. What else does a detective agency really need? Detective agencies rely on human intuition and intelligence, both of which Mma Ramotswe had in abundance.
- But there was also the view, which again would appear on no inventory.
- No inventory would ever include those, of course.
- She had an intelligent secretary too.
- She was a good detective and a good woman.
- What she lacked in possessions was more than made up by a natural shrewdness.
Q11.CAT 2005
From the given options, choose the one that completes the paragraph in the most appropriate way.

Federer’s fifth grand slam win prompted a reporter to ask whether he was the best ever. Federer is certainly not lacking in confidence, but he wasn’t about to proclaim himself the best ever. “The best player of this generation, yes”, he said, “But nowhere close to ever. Just look at the records that some guys have. I’m a minnow.” ______
- His win against Agassi, a genius from the previous generation, contradicts that.
- Sampras, the king of an earlier generation, was as humble.
- He is more than a minnow to his contemporaries.
- The difference between ‘the best of this generation’ and ‘the best ever’ is a matter of perception.
Passage
For each of the two questions, indicate which of the statements given, with that particular question is consistent with the description of the unseasonable man in the passage below.
Unseasonableness is a tendency to do socially permissible things at the wrong time. The unseasonable man is the sort of person who comes to confide in you when you are busy. He serenades his beloved when she is ill. He asks a man who has just lost money by paying a bill for a friend to pay a biII for him. He invites a friend to go for a ride just after the friend has finished a long car trip. He is eager to offer services which are not wanted but which cannot be politely refused. If he is present at an arbitration, he stirs up dissension between the two parties, who were really anxious to agree. Such is the unseasonable man.
Q12.CAT 1999
He tends to
- entertain women.
- be a successful arbitrator when dissenting parties are anxious to agree.
- be helpful when solicited.
- tell a long story to people who have heard it many times before.

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CAT Para Summary previous year questions with solutions — AthenaPrep

CAT Para Summary Questions & Solutions

Q1.CAT 2025

The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.

The return to the tailor is the juxtaposition of three key things for the mindful Indian shopper. The first is the conscious shift away from the homogeneity of fast fashion, the idea of a hundred other people owning exactly the same Zara trench coat or H&M pleated skirt. The second is an actual understanding of the waste behind the fast fashion market, and wanting not to contribute to that anymore. The last is the shift toward customisation and fit—the idea of having imaginations brought to life and to have them fit exactly; without paying exorbitant rates for that bespoke tailoring. For the individual with a keen fashion sense and a genuine desire to move away from the waste and uniformity of fast fashion without paying the premium for it that indie brands would invariably demand, the tailor is the perfect crossover.

The mindful Indian shoppers are returning to the tailor with a genuine desire to wear clothes which are less expensive, fit them well and are yet fashionable.
The mindful Indian shopper is shifting away from convenience and uniformity of clothing, and waste in fashion, to customisation and less exorbitantly priced clothing.
All Indian shoppers are opting for customisation and a shift away from homogeneity over expensive clothing brands like Zara and H&M.
In the Indian retail market, people believe that expensive branded clothes are wasteful and, therefore, are returning to the neighbourhood tailor.

Q2.CAT 2024

The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.

Recent important scientific findings have emerged from crossing the boundaries of scientific fields. They stem from physicists collaborating with biologists, sociologists and others, to answer questions about our world. But physicists and their potential collaborators often find their cultures out of sync. For one, physicists often discard a lot of information while extracting broad patterns; for other scientists, information is not readily disposed. Further, many non-physicists are uncomfortable with mathematical models. Still, the desire to work on something new and different is real, and there are clear benefits from the collision of views.

Despite differences in their research styles, physicists’ research collaborations with scholars from other disciplines have yielded important research findings.
Large data sets and mathematical models in physics research combined with the research methods of non-physicist collaborators have yielded important scientific findings.
The desire to diversify their research and answer important questions has led to several collaborations between physicists and other social scientists.
Physicists have successfully buried their differences on research methods applied in other fields in their desire to find answers to baffling scientific questions.

Q3.CAT 2023

The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.

Colonialism is not a modern phenomenon. World history is full of examples of one society gradually expanding by incorporating adjacent territory and settling its people on newly conquered territory. In the sixteenth century, colonialism changed decisively because of technological developments in navigation that began to connect more remote parts of the world. The modern European colonial project emerged when it became possible to move large numbers of people across the ocean and to maintain political control in spite of geographical dispersion. The term colonialism is used to describe the process of European settlement, violent dispossession and political
domination over the rest of the world, including the Americas, Australia, and parts of Africa and Asia.

As a result of developments in navigation technology, European colonialism led to the displacement of indigenous populations and global political changes in the 16th century.
Colonialism, conceptualized in the 16th century, allowed colonizers to expand their territories, establish settlements, and exercise political power.
Technological advancements in navigation in the 16th century, transformed colonialism, enabling Europeans to establish settlements and exert political dominance over distant regions.
Colonialism surged in the 16th century due to advancements in navigation, enabling British settlements abroad and global dominance.

Q4.CAT 2022

The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.

There's a common idea that museum artworks are somehow timeless objects available to admire for generations to come. But many are objects of decay. Even the most venerable Old Master paintings don't escape: pigments discolour, varnishes crack, canvases warp. This challenging fact of art-world life is down to something that sounds more like a thread from a morality tale: inherent vice. Damien Hirst's iconic shark floating in a tank - entitled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living - is a work that put a spotlight on inherent vice. When he made it in 1991, Hirst got himself in a pickle by not using the right kind of pickle to preserve the giant fish. The result was that the shark began to decompose quite quickly - its preserving liquid clouding, the skin wrinkling, and an unpleasant smell wafting from the tank.

Museums are left with the moral responsibility of restoring and preserving the artworks since artists cannot preserve their works beyond their life.
Museums have to guard timeless art treasures from intrinsic defects such as the deterioration of paint, polish and canvas.
The role of museums has evolved to ensure that the artworks are preserved forever in addition to guarding and displaying them.
Artworks may not last forever; they may deteriorate with time, and the challenge is to slow down their degeneration.

Q5.CAT 2021

The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Developing countries are becoming hotbeds of business innovation in much the same way as Japan did from the 1950s onwards. They are reinventing systems of production and distribution, and experimenting with entirely new business models. Why are countries that were until recently associated with cheap hands now becoming leaders in innovation? Driven by a mixture of ambition and fear they are relentlessly climbing up the value chain. Emerging-market champions have not only proved highly competitive in their own backyards, they are also going global themselves.

Competition has driven emerging economies, once suppliers of cheap labour, to become innovators of business models that have enabled them to move up the value chain and go global.
Innovations in production and distribution are helping emerging economies compete with countries to which they once supplied cheap labour.
Developing countries are being forced to invent new business models which challenge the old business models, so they can remain competitive domestically.
Production and distribution models are going through rapid innovations worldwide as developed countries are being challenged by their earlier suppliers from the developing world.

Q6.CAT 2020

The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.

As Soviet power declined, the world became to some extent multipolar, and Europe strove to define an independent identity. What a journey Europe has undertaken to reach this point. It had in every century changed its internal structure and invented new ways of thinking about the nature of international order. Now at the culmination of an era, Europe, in order to participate in it, felt obliged to set aside the political mechanisms through which it had conducted its affairs for three and a half centuries. Impelled also by the desire to cushion the emergent unification of Germany, the new European Union established a common currency in 2002 and a formal political structure in 2004. It proclaimed a Europe united, whole, and free, adjusting its differences by peaceful mechanisms.

Europe has consistently changed in keeping with the changing world order and that has culminated in a united Europe.
The establishment of a formal political structure in Europe was hastened by the unification of Germany and the emergence of a multipolar world.
Europe has consistently changed its internal structure to successfully adapt to the changing world order.
Europe has chosen to lower political and economic heterogeneity, in order to adapt itself to an emerging multi-polar world.

Q7.CAT 2019

The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.

Vance Packard’s The Hidden Persuaders alerted the public to the psychoanalytical techniques used by the advertising industry. Its premise was that advertising agencies were using depth interviews to identify hidden consumer motivations, which were then used to entice consumers to buy goods. Critics and reporters often wrongly assumed that Packard was writing mainly about subliminal advertising. Packard never mentioned the word subliminal, however, and devoted very little space to discussions of “subthreshold” effects. Instead, his views largely aligned with the notion that individuals do not always have access to their conscious thoughts and can be persuaded by supraliminal messages without their knowledge.

Packard held that advertising as a ‘hidden persuasion’ understands the hidden motivations of consumers and works at the supraliminal level, though the people targeted have no awareness of being persuaded.
Packard held that advertising as a ‘hidden persuasion’ builds on peoples’ conscious thoughts and awareness, by understanding the hidden motivations of consumers and works at the subliminal level.
Packard argued that advertising as a ‘hidden persuasion’ works at the supraliminal level, wherein the people targeted are aware of being persuaded, after understanding the hidden motivations of consumers and works.
Packard argued that advertising as a ‘hidden persuasion’ understands the hidden motivations of consumers and works at the subliminal level, on the subconscious level of the awareness of the people targeted.

Q8.CAT 2018

The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the author’s position.

Artificial embryo twinning is a relatively low-tech way to make clones. As the name suggests, this technique mimics the natural process that creates identical twins. In nature, twins form very early in development when the embryo splits in two. Twinning happens in the first days after egg and sperm join, while the embryo is made of just a small number of unspecialized cells. Each half of the embryo continues dividing on its own, ultimately developing into separate, complete individuals. Since they developed from the same fertilized egg, the resulting individuals are genetically identical.

Artificial embryo twinning is low-tech and mimetic of the natural development of genetically identical twins from the embryo after fertilization.
Artificial embryo twinning is low-tech and is close to the natural development of twins where the embryo splits into two identical twins.
Artificial embryo twinning is low-tech unlike the natural development of identical twins from the embryo after fertilization.
Artificial embryo twinning is just like the natural development of twins, where during fertilization twins are formed.

Q9.CAT 2017

The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the author's position.

Both Socrates and Bacon were very good at asking useful questions. In fact, Socrates is largely credited with coming up with a way of asking questions, 'the Socratic method,' which itself is at the core of the 'scientific method,' popularised by Bacon. The Socratic method disproves arguments by finding exceptions to them, and can therefore lead your opponent to a point where they admit something that contradicts their original position. In common with Socrates, Bacon stressed it was as important to disprove a theory as it was to prove one — and real-world observation and experimentation were key to achieving both aims. Bacon also saw science as a collaborative affair, with scientists working together, challenging each other.

Both Socrates and Bacon advocated clever questioning of the opponents to disprove their arguments and theories.
Both Socrates and Bacon advocated challenging arguments and theories by observation and experimentation.
Both Socrates and Bacon advocated confirming arguments and theories by finding exceptions.
Both Socrates and Bacon advocated examining arguments and theories from both sides to prove them.

Passage

Each of the following questions has a paragraph from which the last sentence has been deleted. From the given options, choose the sentence that completes the paragraph in the most appropriate way.

Q10.CAT 2007

Mma Ramotswe had a detective agency in Africa, at the foot of Kgale Hill. These were its assets; a tiny white van, two desks, two chairs, a telephone, and an old typewriter. Then there was a teapot, in which Mma Ramotswe - the only private lady detective in Botswana - brewed red bush tea. And three mugs - one for herself, one for her secretary and one for the client. What else does a detective agency really need? Detective agencies rely on human intuition and intelligence, both of which Mma Ramotswe had in abundance.

But there was also the view, which again would appear on no inventory.
No inventory would ever include those, of course.
She had an intelligent secretary too.
She was a good detective and a good woman.
What she lacked in possessions was more than made up by a natural shrewdness.

Q11.CAT 2005

From the given options, choose the one that completes the paragraph in the most appropriate way.

Federer’s fifth grand slam win prompted a reporter to ask whether he was the best ever. Federer is certainly not lacking in confidence, but he wasn’t about to proclaim himself the best ever. “The best player of this generation, yes”, he said, “But nowhere close to ever. Just look at the records that some guys have. I’m a minnow.” ______

His win against Agassi, a genius from the previous generation, contradicts that.
Sampras, the king of an earlier generation, was as humble.
He is more than a minnow to his contemporaries.
The difference between ‘the best of this generation’ and ‘the best ever’ is a matter of perception.

Passage

For each of the two questions, indicate which of the statements given, with that particular question is consistent with the description of the unseasonable man in the passage below.

Unseasonableness is a tendency to do socially permissible things at the wrong time. The unseasonable man is the sort of person who comes to confide in you when you are busy. He serenades his beloved when she is ill. He asks a man who has just lost money by paying a bill for a friend to pay a biII for him. He invites a friend to go for a ride just after the friend has finished a long car trip. He is eager to offer services which are not wanted but which cannot be politely refused. If he is present at an arbitration, he stirs up dissension between the two parties, who were really anxious to agree. Such is the unseasonable man.

Q12.CAT 1999

He tends to

entertain women.
be a successful arbitrator when dissenting parties are anxious to agree.
be helpful when solicited.
tell a long story to people who have heard it many times before.

84+ more Para Summary questions inside

Get the full CAT Para Summary set with timed practice, bookmarks and analysis — free to start.

Start practising free

CAT Para Summary previous year questions with solutions — AthenaPrep