CAT 2022 Slot 2 · VARC · Question 21

CAT 2022 Slot 2 previous year question on Para Summary, with the answer and a step-by-step solution.

Para SummaryVerbal AbilityMultiple choiceMedium

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

Today, many of the debates about behavioural control in the age of big data echo Cold War-era anxieties about brainwashing, insidious manipulation and repression in the ‘technological society’. In his book Psychopolitics, Han warns of the sophisticated use of targeted online content, enabling ‘influence to take place on a pre-reflexive level’. On our current trajectory, “freedom will prove to have been merely an interlude.” The fear is that the digital age has not liberated us but exposed us, by offering up our private lives to machine-learning algorithms that can process masses of personal and behavioural data. In a world of influencers and digital entrepreneurs, it’s not easy to imagine the resurgence of a culture engendered through disconnect and disaffiliation, but concerns over the threat of online targeting, polarisation and big data have inspired recent polemics about the need to rediscover solitude and disconnect.

  1. A

    Rather than freeing us, digital technology is enslaving us by collecting personal information and influencing our online behaviour.

  2. B

    With big data making personal information freely available, the debate on the nature of freedom and the need for privacy has resurfaced.

  3. C

    The role of technology in influencing public behaviour is reminiscent of the manner in which behaviour was manipulated during the Cold War.

  4. D

    The notion of freedom and privacy is at stake in a world where artificial intelligence is capable of influencing behaviour through data gathered online.

Pick an option, then check.
Answer & solution

Answer: Option B

The passage says debates about behavioural control in the age of big data echo Cold War anxieties; there is fear that the digital age has exposed our private lives to algorithms; and this has revived calls to rediscover solitude and disconnect.

Option 2 captures this: as big data exposes personal information, the debate about freedom and privacy has resurfaced.

Option 1 states as fact ('is enslaving us') what the passage presents as a fear.

Option 3 picks only the Cold War comparison.

Option 4 brings in artificial intelligence and leaves out the revived debate.

Shortcut: the passage reports a debate ('the fear is', 'concerns . . . have inspired'). The summary should report a debate, not a fact.

Hence, the answer is option 2.

More Para Summary questions

All Para Summary PYQs →

Take this paper as a timed test
Real exam timing, instant score, rank and topic-wise analysis.

Practice timed →