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PaGaLGuY.com presents Arun Sharmas Mindworkzz DI a Day

To subscribe, go to http://www.pagalguy.com/index.php?categoryid=79 Mini-test Challenge September 19, 2008 Directions to test takers: This test contains 16 questions and 6 pages To take this test in order to check where you stand, take it in a 30-minute time frame. The top 25 people scorers in this test would be getting a free 2-week CAT course with Arun Sharma from Mindworkzz. Deadline to submit answers Monday, September 22, 11:59 pm (that is, the midnight at the end of Monday and beginning of Tuesday). In order to take part in the competition you are allowed to use unlimited time to solve. So the challenge is - Get everything correct and force us to give more than 25 prizes! :) All the best!!! The following table shows the consolidated position board in terms of the points scored by each of the five students at the end of each set of ten tests from the beginning. End of the first Aroon 10 tests 20 tests 30 tests 40 tests 50 tests 60 tests 60 100 150 190 240 300 Baroon 60 110 170 200 240 260
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Person Caroon 40 110 130 200 220 260 Daroon 20 40 60 80 140 180 Earon 20 40 90 130 16 200

1 At least how many times did Aroon secure the 1 rank in the 60 tests? (1) 2 (2) 3 (3) 4 (4) 5 (5) None of these 2. If Caroon secured 2 rank exactly three times in the first 20 tests, at most how many times did he rd secure 3 rank in the first 20 tests? (1) 9 (2) 10 (3) 11 (4) 12 (5) None of these
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3. At most how many times did Daroon secure the last rank in the 60 tests? (1) 31 (2) 32 (3) 33 (4) 34 (5) None of these

4. At least how many times did Daroon secure the last rank in the 60 tests? (1) 6 (2) 7 (3) 8 (4) 9
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(5) None of these

5. At least how many times did Earon secure 2 rank in the first 30 tests, if he got two pointers exactly two times in each of the first, second and third sets of ten tests each? (1) 0 (2) 1 (3) 2 (4) 3 (5) None of these

Directions for question 6 - 8: The questions are based on two different sets of arguments which have been jumbled up. Understand the arguments properly and answer the questions that follow: A. A user can purchase an item while it is on sale B. Business should use advertising to adjust consumer expectations to coincide with their products' performances. C. So the lower cost of the item offsets the extra cost of the credit D. Negative consumer reaction to a product is not generated solely by critical negative appraisal of a products performance E. In fact, the rates are generally several percentage points above those charged by banks for ordinary personal loans F. Recently credit card companies have come under attack by consumer groups who argue that the interest rates charged by these companies are unconscionably high. G. Rather, negative reaction is generated by a perceived gap between consumer expectation and product performance , H. But consumer groups overlook the fact that credit cards afford the user great flexibility 6.One of the arguments above makes which of the following assumptions? (A) The consumers who make purchase of sale items with credit cards are persons who might not qualify for bank loans with lower interest rate. (B) The prices of items on sale purchased by consumers are still sufficiently high to enable sellers to recoup their costs and make a modest profit. (C) The cost savings of buying an item at a reduced price are at least equal to the excess interest that the consumer pays on purchases made with a credit card. (D) The average outstanding balance of the ordinary credit card user is no greater than the total non credit card debt of the credit card user. (E) The rates of interest for credit cards are generally several percentage points above those charged by banks for ordinary personal loans. 7. Which of the following is/are implied by one of the arguments above? A. When consumer expectations about product performance increase, negative consumer reaction may persist despite improvements in product performance B. If Consumer expectations are sufficiently reduced, then negative consumer reaction to products will disappear even though product performance remains unchanged C. If product performances are sufficiently improved, negative consumer reaction to products will disappear. (A) A only (B) B only (C) A & B only (D) B & C only (E) All of these 8. Which of the following, if true, would most weaken one of the two arguments? (A) The expectations of most consumers are influenced to a large extent by the claims made for those products by the manufactures (B) Most consumers purchase products based upon their recognition of a particular brand name, not a critical evaluation of the product's past performance. (C) Most consumers are able to make informed judgments about the actual performance of the products they purchase. (D) Unless consumers expectations about a product are sufficiently high, consumers will not purchase that product. (E) None of these

Questions 9 to 16 Read the following passage and answer the questions attached: The question of Social Responsibility for corporations has now reached center stage in the debate on economic globalization. The reasons are manifold, some worthless and others compelling. Perhaps the most salient reason is that many, specially the left-leaning students of literary theory and sociology on campuses, consider that as the new century begins, capitalism has triumphed and communism, its most promising rival, has collapsed. Corporations are the B52s of capitalism: ergo, they must be attacked as economically powerful and socially malignable entities. The popularity of recent films such as Erin Brockowich (with the mediocre actress Julia Roberts hailed as a great actress because of confusion between her acting and her role as female David taking on a corporate Goliath) and The Insider (where the gifted actor Russell Crowe takes on the tobacco industry), and the return to limelight of the great anti-corporations activist Ralph Nader, are symptomatic of the frustration and resentment against corporations that have emerged today more generally from what I like to call The Tyranny of the Missing Alternative. Those corporations can be, and are, both benign and malign, just as activists fall into both camps, is a fact that cannot penetrate this set of beliefs: and each time some corporate transgression of ones moral sense is found, the gotcha mentality takes over and the believers get mired in their views yet deeper. Then there are the anti-globalists who are convinced that, even if the corporations do not have any malign intent, they have a malign impact. These groups also have a number of beliefs that often have little to do with reality. Thus, the feminists think that the global economy hurts women. Does it really? Take Japan. An ICFTU pamphlet on women in the global economy correctly states that Japanese women are treated badly but incorrectly suggests that the global economy is a cause. But globalization in the form of Japanese corporations investing and going abroad massively in the 1980s and early 1990s took lots of Japanese women as spouses to the West, giving them a firsthand view of womens rights and, on return, they have become a force for social change. Again, take wage differentials against women. A study by the two young women economists, Sandra E. Black and Elizabeth Brainerd, argues that because competitive industries cannot afford to pay higher wages to men when women are as productive, this prejudice will get effectively pressured out as competition grows, especially in internationally active industries (which are likely to have global corporations present among them), and they find that it is indeed so relative to the progress in other industries. But as the former Secretary General of the UN, Mr. Kofi Annan, said at the Davos meeting in January, these fears, even when groundless, are often strongly held; and as the Russian proverb goes, fear has big eyes. So, these fears drive the agitation for corporate responsibility. But, from my viewpoint, the truly, indeed the only, compelling reason for corporations to assume social responsibility is that it is the right thing to do. For, in so doing, they will accelerate the social good that their economic activities promote, and for which there is now much evidence. I see such assumption of social responsibility as part of the package of institutional and policy changes that we need today to reinforce the enormous good that economic globalization is bringing worldwide wherever countries have managed to access globalization --- a rider that must be added and understood correctly since it is nonsensical to attack economic globalization as causing anti-social outcomes when the problem is that it passes some or several countries by and hence there is not enough of it. How does one then attack the problem of Social Responsibility for corporations? My view is that there is no single magic bullet. We need instead a multi-pronged approach. In fact, we need three complementary approaches. Let me endorse Secretary General Kofi Annans Global Compact. It is still evolving. But its central thrust is clear. It is a Compact which is signed on to by corporations (but is also endorsed by several leading NGOs such as Amnesty International and by ICFTU as well). But it has no monitoring, certification and enforcement mechanism. For this reason, it has been rejected by some unions and NGO activists. But they miss the point.

The Global Compact is what economists call a social norming proposition. By signing on to it, corporations agree to certain brand values such as human right which of course include our rights as workers it is odd that many unions today add workers rights to human rights in their exhortations and declamations as if workers were not human beings; perhaps they are thinking of robots rights? -- as consumers, as voters, as children, as women : indeed, in all the different roles we play in life. The very act of signing on to such a Compact then focuses the signatory corporations, and potential critics, on what they do and plan to do in order to achieve progress towards these objectives. What exactly are the steps they would take must surely be left, in view of the extremely general nature of nearly all of these objectives, to the corporations working with the democratic countries in which they operate. Let me explain. For instance, if the corporations operate in the United States, where a recent Human Rights Watch report has found that millions of workers, in nearly all industries, are denied the full freedom to associate and form unions (largely but not exclusively because of restrictions that make it difficult to organize strikes effectively), the signatory corporations can be expected to follow national legislation and act within their national rights : e.g. they would exercise their right to hire replacement workers freely even though that does help cripple the right to strike. But you would expect them to reduce wage discrimination against women on a fast-track basis because the US does in fact accept that objective explicitly and with institutional teeth. Again, to illustrate the complexity of the question, remember that there are both narrow and broad definitions of gender discrimination regarding equal pay. What US corporations will do to ensure conformity to these specific workers rights goals will depend therefore on what the prevalent US legislation is. Thus, what the socially responsible U.S. corporations do in the U.S. may well differ from what Sweden or India accepts as a sensible way to proceed, while all three nations accept the general and very broad rubric of granting the freedom of association and eliminating gender discrimination. Despite this inevitable and indeed desirable diversity of detail, the Social Compact will help diffuse good practices in a flexible fashion. I believe this to be the case because, once corporations with reputations to protect have signed on to the Compact, they are in the public view and truly serious and egregious discrepancies between their behavior and the broad thrust of the norms underlying the Compact can become the target of attention and opprobrium, causing potential loss in reputation and hence financial loss. In addition, we now have several social accountability codes: the New York-based SA8000 (ON WHOSE Board I was for a couple of years), the UK-based Ethical Trading Initiative (which parallels SA8000 a lot), the Washington-based FLA (which is directed at textiles mainly) and others. The proponents of each such Voluntary Code would like to have their own as the only one available. But this is a fundamentally wrong desire. For, the codes can and do contain so many different requirements that diversity is clearly desirable: a firm may like one particular menu and not another from the many menus that are possible. In fact, since virtually all Codes currently available are from developed countries. I believe it is essential that a few be developed from the developing countries themselves. That would bring very different perspectives. For example, there is a great push for a living wage requirement in nearly all of these Codes. But this, according to many intellectuals and NGOs in the developing countries, is wrongheaded since typically the multinationals pay a 10% premium wage to their workers: why raise that even further by pretending that the workers are being exploited because they do not do even better? So, a Code that explicitly excludes a living wage requirement but includes many others should also be available: but it will not come from the developed world. In fact, I believe that the developed country Codes reflect too much the developed country perspectives on the precise contents of issues such as workers rights, too little of the developing country perspectives, reflecting both a certain degree of paternalism and also the deep influence of western labour unions whose own perspectives are often colored by the fact that competition from the poor countries has become more fierce in recent years. The element of choice, and the need to keep developing-country perspectives and interests in view, are both issues that have escaped the recent anti-sweatshop movement which has surfaced on US

campuses to define Social Responsibility by textile firms abroad. Several economists, organized under the new body Academic Consortium on International Trade (ACIT) which I and others formed recently as an intellectual NGO, based at Michigan University, Ann Arbor, have joined debate on these questions and have had some success in bringing these questions to the forefront, not with a view to rejecting the notion of Social Responsibility but instead with a view to bringing reasoned debate, and content, to the definition of such Social Responsibility. Complementing the Global Compact and the Voluntary Codes ( which will vary among the different Codes but are identical within each Code for different signatory firms) is the suggestion that we also have national, mandatory codes ( which will vary across nations) imposed by the home countries. This is a suggestion that I made almost a decade ago, in an open article in The New York Times, in the context of the NAFTA debate: that we ask American firms abroad to do in Rome, not as Romans do, but as new Yorkers do. In short, American firms are legal persons and must abide abroad by some basic principles that the US can validly expect Americans to conform to. Thus, if an American firm had been in South Africa when apartheid was being practiced, then it would be mandated by the US not to practice it. Or if President Salinas did not have legislation to forbid the dumping of mercury into Mexicos water, American firms could be asked by the US nonetheless not do it. Yes, some American firms will move to Bahamas to do the US mandatory code forbids: but then, when they get into political trouble, the US marines or the US diplomatic muscle will not be available to help them either. Again, one might say: Good riddance to bad rubbish! Such mandatory national (home-country) Codes can also extend to more specific environmental and decent-work (i.e. minimal safety and dignity) provisions. In fact, the empirical evidence suggests strongly that many of the big firms, which account for the bulk of foreign investment in developing countries, generally abide by such provisions in their factories. Why not then allay race to the bottom concerns and put in some of these kinds of provisions into the mandatory national Codes? 9. Which of the following is the author trying to convey by the statement Tyranny of the missing alternative? a) In the absence of an alternative, corporations have occupied the mind space of anti corporation activists b) In the absence of an alternative on which to pour out ones frustration and resentment, anti corporation activists choose to take it all out in the form of oppressing corporations. c) In the absence of an alternative on which to pour out ones frustration and resentment, anti corporation activists choose to take it all out in the form of tyrannizing corporations. d) In the absence of an alternative on which to pour out ones frustration and resentment, anti corporation activists choose to take it all out by blaming corporations for all ills. e) In the absence of an alternative on which to pour out ones frustration and resentment, people choose to blame corporations for all these frustrations and resentments. 10. Which of the following is true according to the passage? 1) The question of social responsibility has reached the centre stage 2) The debate on economic globalization is displacing the question of social responsibility from the centre stage 3] The question of social responsibility for corporations is replacing the debate on economic globalization from the centre stage. a) Not 1 but 2 c) All of these b) To some extent 2 but to a larger extent 3 d) Only 3 e) None of these

11. From what can be inferred from the passage, which of the following would be the best example for anti-globalists to propound their views about corporations? a) A global study of the environment concluded that of the leading causes of environmental damage, industrial waste contributes to more than 50% of the overall damage.

b) It was found in a survey of Indian Industry that there is a strong bias against people coming from the lower strata of society. c) In a long term study of the effects of the use of mobile phones by people it was found that the advent of mobile phone technology led to the loss of jobs in the paging industry. d) In a study of the Pizza industry in India it was found that there were more pizzas sold in India than in Italy the place where pizzas had originated. So much so, that the sales of samosas in India had dropped due to this trend. e) None of these 12. What is the author trying to convey by using the Russian proverb Fear has big eyes? a) When you are fearful, you have a tendency to perceive sinister designs even in things that might or might not actually be malign in nature. b) When you are fearful, you have a tendency to perceive sinister designs even in things that might actually be benign in nature. c) Fear induces you to perceive things which are not actually present d) Fear induces you to perceive things which may or may not be actually present e) None of these 13. Which of the following is not true according to the passage? 1] Kofi Annan believes that fear emanating from prejudices have a tendency to drive the agitation for corporate responsibility 2] The author believes that corporate responsibility should be adopted by corporations for the simple reason that it is the right thing to do 3] The author believes that the problem of social Responsibility for corporations cannot be handled using a single approach. a) 1 & 2 only e) None of these b) 1 & 3 only c) 2 only d) All three

14. What is the author implying by race to the bottom? a) A tendency to distinguish and discriminate on the basis of race. b) The tendency to reduce the use of ones race as a discriminatory factor in corporate culture. c) The need to reduce the concerns with respect to the use of race d) Changing the provisions of National Codes e) None of these 15. Which of the following have been discussed in the passage as an approach to attack the problem of social Responsibility for corporations a] The social norming proposition b] The Global compact c] Voluntary codes d] Mandatory national codes a) Both b & c b) All except a & b b) All of these c) b, c and d e) None of these

16.All of these is not true according to the passage except 1] Social compact will help diffuse good practices in a flexible manner 2] the author believes that loss in reputation can lead to financial losses for an organisation. 3] Corporations who will sign the Social Compact will be subjected to more critical scrutiny a) 1 & 2 only d) 1 & 3 only b) 2 & 3 only c) All of these e) None of these End of Test