CAT Questions | CAT Word Usage Questions

The question is from CAT Word Usage. Word Usage for Verbal Ability for CAT. Word Usage questions that appear in the verbal section of CAT look for the correct usage of words in a sentence. Have a look at this question from Word Usage. Solve CAT Questions from Word Usage to get more practice and 2IIMs CAT questions bank provides you with CAT questions that can help you gear for CAT Exam .

Question 6: The Parthenon, along with Cheops’s pyramid, Wren’s churches and Mansard’s palaces —ranks as an architectural archetype(A)/prototype (B).

The builders of the Parthenon were steeped (A)/steered (B) by tradition, yet free to experiment.

They worked to (A)/for (B) extreme precision, yet the final result was anything but rigid.

Knowing that long horizontal lines appear to sag, even though they are absolutely straight, horizontal elements were deliberately curved and the vertical columns “fattened� in the middle to compensate (A)/accommodate (B) for the vagaries of the human eye.

1. BABB
2. AABB
3. ABAA
4. BBBA

Explanatory Answer

Method of solving this CAT Question from Word Usage:

Sentence 1- The Parthenon, along with Cheops’s pyramid, Wren’s churches and Mansard’s palaces —ranks as an architectural archetype (A)/prototype (B).

Archetype and prototype are words that are often confused. An archetype refers to an ideal or theoretically perfect example that existing things or people strive to copy but can never duplicate. A prototype, on the other hand, is an early, usually unrefined version of something that later versions reflect but may depart from.

The correct choice of word for this sentence about the Parthenon is archetype.

Sentence 2- The builders of the Parthenon were steeped (A)/steered (B) by tradition, yet free to experiment.

The word steeped means drenched or soaked. However, the verb steeped is usually followed by “in� and not “by� in a sentence. The builders of the Parthenon were steeped in tradition makes sense.

However, we have the word “by� in the sentence following the verb, so the correct word to be used here is steered (guided) by tradition.

Sentence 3- They worked to (A)/for (B) extreme precision, yet the final result was anything but rigid.

The correct word here is to, not for.

Sentence 4- Knowing that long horizontal lines appear to sag, even though they are absolutely straight, horizontal elements were deliberately curved and the vertical columns “fattened� in the middle to compensate (A)/accommodate (B) for the vagaries of the human eye.

Compensate makes better sense than accommodate in this sentence. To compensate for the vagaries of the human eye, structural adjustments were made to the Parthenon. Accommodate would have been followed directly by “the vagaries of the human eye� without the need for a “for� in the sentence.

Hence, the answer is ABAA

Choice C is the correct answer.