CAT 2024 Slot 3 · VARC · Question 6

CAT 2024 Slot 3 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.

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 non-tradwife’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.

  1. A
    The tradwife’s commitment to outdated gender roles and retro fashion critiques the superficiality of today's societal ideals.
  2. B
    By promoting an idealized past, the tradwife exposes the artifice of contemporary values and mocks societal norms.
  3. C
    The tradwife, with her vintage dress and traditional roles, highlights the superficiality of modern life and challenges current societal norms.
  4. D
    The tradwife’s vintage dress and adherence to traditional roles reveal the artificial nature of modern life and its superficial values.
Pick an option, then check.
Answer & solution

Answer: Option C

The passage argues that the tradwife, by taking the fantasy of an idyllic past literally – the dress and the 'primitive gender roles' – reminds everyone 'how much our lives consist of artifice and playacting'. She 'outrages people' with regressive ideals and 'beats us at our own dress-up game', leaving others 'feeling hollow, cheated'.

Option 3 covers the dress and the traditional roles, the exposure of modern superficiality, and the challenge she poses to current norms (the outrage she provokes).

Option 1 says her commitment 'critiques' today's ideals, implying a deliberate critique. The passage says she 'ends up delivering' the reminder – it is an effect, not her aim.

Option 2 says she 'mocks societal norms'. The passage says her behaviour is 'indistinguishable from the non-tradwife's'; she out-plays the game rather than mocking it.

Option 4 is close but drops the outrage and challenge to norms, which is a central part of the passage.

Shortcut: in a para summary with close options, check each for both halves of the passage – here, what the tradwife reveals and how people react to her. Only option 3 has both.

Hence, the answer is option 3.

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