CAT 2025 Slot 2 · VARC · Question 22

CAT 2025 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 summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.

In 1903, left-wing feminist Elizabeth Magie invented The Landlord's Game, the original version of what became Monopoly. It was designed as a powerful teaching tool to illustrate the dangers of monopolies and how wealth could concentrate in the hands of a few. The game featured a circular path, properties, and a "Go to Jail" space. Magie created two rule sets: one "monopolist" version where players crushed opponents through accumulation, and another, more radical "Prosperity" version, where everyone shared in the wealth, promoting fairness and equity. Years later, unemployed Charles Darrow sold a simplified version to Parker Brothers. They paid Magie only $500 for her patent—without royalties—and credited Darrow as the sole inventor. For decades, his tale of inventing the game in his basement remained the official story, while Magie's name and her original, anti-capitalist message were left in the shadows.

  1. A

    Parker Brothers' capitalist intent led to them acquiring from Charles Darrow a simplified version of Elizabeth Magie's original game, transforming it into a widespread commercial success while providing her only minimal financial compensation and granting scant public recognition.

  2. B

    Celebrated icons of the gaming industry, Charles Darrow and Parker Brothers, snatched the feminist icon Elizabeth Magie's original design and transformed Monopoly into a worldwide phenomenon, while barely acknowledging her.

  3. C

    It is ironical that a left-wing feminist lost credit for the Landlord's Game to an unemployed man, who plagiarised and sold one version of the twin game to Parker Brothers for a meagre sum, denying her royalties.

  4. D

    Only one version of Monopoly became famous because of Charles Darrow's relentless basement work, carefully refining Elizabeth Magie's original idea into an engaging and entertaining pastime that he successfully patented and sold, symbolizing what many regarded as the ultimate triumph of individual ingenuity.

Pick an option, then check.
Answer & solution

Answer: Option C

The paragraph's centre of gravity is the irony: a left-wing feminist designed a game to warn against monopoly and wealth concentration, created two rule sets including an egalitarian 'Prosperity' version, and then lost credit and royalties to an unemployed man who sold a simplified version.

Option 3 holds all of that – the irony, the left-wing feminist, the unemployed man, the twin game of which only one version was taken, the meagre sum and the denied royalties. It is the closest reading.

Option 1 attributes the outcome to 'Parker Brothers' capitalist intent'. The paragraph reports what they paid and whom they credited; it never ascribes an intent to them. The option also drops Magie's politics and the two rule sets, which is where the irony lives.

Option 2 calls Darrow and Parker Brothers 'celebrated icons of the gaming industry'. Darrow is described as unemployed, and nothing in the paragraph crowns either of them an icon.

Option 4 is the paragraph turned on its head. It presents Darrow's basement story as fact and praises his 'relentless' refining, whereas the paragraph calls that story the official one for decades while Magie was left in the shadows.

Shortcut: when a paragraph is built on an irony, the summary that keeps the irony explicit is nearly always the answer. Options that smooth it into a neutral business account, or retell the discredited version, fail on that count alone.

Hence, the answer is option 3.

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