The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Zombie cells may contribute to age-related chronic inflammation: this finding could help scientists understand more about the aging process and why the immune system becomes less effective as we get older. Zombie or “senescent” cells are damaged cells that can no longer divide and grow like normal cells. Scientists think that these cells can contribute to chronic health problems when they accumulate in the body. In younger people, the immune system is more effective at clearing senescent cells from the body through a process called apoptosis, but as we age this process becomes less efficient. As a result, there is an accumulation of senescent cells in different organs in the body, either through increased production or reduced clearance by the immune system. The zombie cells continue to use energy though they do not divide, and often secrete chemicals that cause inflammation, which if persistent for longer periods of time can damage healthy cells leading to chronic diseases.
Zombie cells may contribute to age-related chronic inflammation: this finding could help scientists understand more about the aging process and why the immune system becomes less effective as we get older. Zombie or “senescent” cells are damaged cells that can no longer divide and grow like normal cells. Scientists think that these cells can contribute to chronic health problems when they accumulate in the body. In younger people, the immune system is more effective at clearing senescent cells from the body through a process called apoptosis, but as we age this process becomes less efficient. As a result, there is an accumulation of senescent cells in different organs in the body, either through increased production or reduced clearance by the immune system. The zombie cells continue to use energy though they do not divide, and often secrete chemicals that cause inflammation, which if persistent for longer periods of time can damage healthy cells leading to chronic diseases.
Show Hint
- Senescent “zombie” cells are inactive or malfunctioning cells that can be found throughout the body.
- A younger person’s immune system is healthy and is able to clear the damaged cells, but as people age, the zombie cells resist apoptosis, and start accumulating in the body.
- Aging leads to less effective apoptosis, and therefore zombie cells start to accumulate in the body, causing inflammation, which accelerates aging and leads to chronic diseases.
- Dead cells accelerate chronic inflammation weakening the immune system and lead to aging.
The Correct Option is C
Approach Solution - 1
To determine the best summary for the passage about zombie cells and their role in aging and chronic inflammation, let's analyze each of the provided options in the context of the given passage. We'll assess how accurately each option captures the essence of the passage.
- The passage discusses "zombie" or "senescent" cells, which are damaged cells that cease to divide and grow normally but are not completely inactive; they continue to utilize energy and secrete chemicals that can cause inflammation. This establishes the background for the impact of these cells as we age.
- Option: Senescent “zombie” cells are inactive or malfunctioning cells that can be found throughout the body.
- This option suggests that these cells are merely inactive or malfunctioning. While it accurately identifies that zombie cells are present in the body, it does not fully capture how they actively contribute to inflammation and aging as described in the passage.
- Option: A younger person’s immune system is healthy and is able to clear the damaged cells, but as people age, the zombie cells resist apoptosis, and start accumulating in the body.
- This option highlights the difference in how younger vs. older immune systems handle senescent cells. Although true, it does not encompass the resultant chronic inflammation and its link to aging processes highlighted in the passage.
- Option: Aging leads to less effective apoptosis, and therefore zombie cells start to accumulate in the body, causing inflammation, which accelerates aging and leads to chronic diseases.
- This option accurately summarizes the passage by explaining how the decreased efficiency of apoptosis in aging leads to an accumulation of zombie cells, which then cause inflammation. This inflammation, when persistent, contributes to chronic diseases and speeds up the aging process. This captures the full cycle described in the text, from immune efficiency to disease onset.
- Option: Dead cells accelerate chronic inflammation weakening the immune system and lead to aging.
- This option incorrectly focuses on dead cells, whereas the passage specifically discusses senescent cells, which are alive but non-dividing. Furthermore, it doesn’t clearly connect the accumulation and action of these cells to chronic inflammation and disease as described in the passage.
Therefore, the most comprehensive and accurate summary of the passage is: Aging leads to less effective apoptosis, and therefore zombie cells start to accumulate in the body, causing inflammation, which accelerates aging and leads to chronic diseases.
Approach Solution -2
Step 1: Identify the main ideas of the passage. & nbsp;
The passage explains:
- What senescent (“zombie”) cells are — damaged, non-dividing cells.
- Young immune systems clear these cells, but aging reduces this ability.
- As a result, zombie cells accumulate.
- These accumulated cells release inflammatory chemicals.
- Chronic inflammation contributes to age-related diseases.
A good summary must integrate all of these points: aging → reduced apoptosis → accumulation → inflammation → chronic disease.
Step 2: Evaluate the options.
- Option (1): Too general. It merely defines zombie cells; it does not capture the mechanism or implications.
- Option (2): Partially correct but incomplete. It mentions aging and accumulation but omits inflammation and chronic disease, which are central to the passage.
- Option (3): Correct. This option captures:
- aging reduces apoptosis,
- accumulation of zombie cells,
- inflammation,
- chronic disease progression.
- Option (4): Incorrect. Zombie cells are not dead cells. The passage also does not say inflammation causes aging; rather, zombie cells contribute to chronic disease.
Conclusion:
Thus, the best summary is Option (3).
Top CAT Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VARC) Questions
- 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 four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, and 4) given below, when properly sequenced, would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequencing of the order of the sentences and key in the sequence of the four numbers as your answer.
1. "Literature on screen" suggests something more capacious and defining than citation: the possibility that literary adaptations are at once cinema and literature.
2. Even though a growing number of films eligible for Academy Awards for Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium borrow that material from print journalism, franchise characters, television series, comic books, video games and toys, academic studies of adaptation remain stubbornly attached to literature as cinema’s natural progenitor.
3. It is as if adaptation studies, by borrowing the cultural cachet of literature, sought to claim its institutional respectability and gravitas even while insuring adaptation’s enduring aesthetic and methodological subordination to literature proper.
4. Beneath this contradictory notion of film adaptations as not merely hybrid texts but texts holding dual citizenship in two modes of presentation is an even more pervasive legacy that haunts adaptation studies: the assumption that the primary context within which adaptations are to be studied is literature. - Five jumbled sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5), related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd sentence out and key in the number of that sentence as your answer.
The given sentence is missing in the paragraph below. Decide where it best fits among the options 1, 2, 3, or 4 indicated in the paragraph.
Sentence: Productivity gains, once expected to feed through to broader living standards, now primarily serve to enhance returns to wealth.
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Para-Jumble Arrange the sentences in a coherent order:
- Knowledge acquired early in life is often treated as fixed.
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- People often cling to outdated assumptions even when proven wrong.
Top CAT Para Summary Questions
- 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 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 Dollar 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. - The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
In the dynamic realm of creativity, artists often find themselves at the crossroads between drawing inspiration from diverse cultures and inadvertently crossing into the territory of cultural appropriation. Inspiration is the lifeblood of creativity, driving artists to create works that resonate across borders. In a globalized era of the modern world, artists draw from a vast array of cultural influences. When approached respectfully, inspiration becomes a bridge, fostering understanding and appreciation of cultural diversity. However, the line between inspiration and cultural appropriation can be thin and easily blurred.
Cultural appropriation occurs when elements from a particular culture are borrowed without proper understanding, respect, or acknowledgment. This leads to the commodification of sacred symbols, the reinforcement of stereotypes, and the erasure of the cultural context from which these elements originated. It is essential to recognize that the impact of cultural appropriation extends beyond the realm of artistic expression, influencing societal perceptions and perpetuating power imbalances. The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
In investigating memory-beliefs, there are certain points which must be borne in mind. In the first place, everything constituting a memory-belief is happening now, not in that past time to which the belief is said to refer. It is not logically necessary to the existence of a memory-belief that the event remembered should have occurred, or even that the past should have existed at all. There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered" a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago. Hence the occurrences which are CALLED knowledge of the past are logically independent of the past; they are wholly analysable into present contents, which might, theoretically, be just what they are even if no past had existed.Para-Summary Paragraph:
Public debates often oversimplify complex issues into binary choices such as right/wrong or safe/unsafe. This reductive framing limits nuanced thinking, discourages dialogue, and pushes people to defend positions rather than understand diverse viewpoints.Which sentence best summarizes this paragraph?
- Public debates today have become unnecessarily aggressive.
- Oversimplifying issues into binaries prevents meaningful discussion.
- People avoid nuanced thinking due to lack of education.
- Complex issues should always involve experts.
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