CAT Questions | CAT Paragraph Completion Questions

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Question 21: Economic models are stylized abstractions of reality; designing them is an art and a science. I once had a professor who’d compare economic models to maps. _____________________________. The same is true for economic models. You choose what’s important to include in order to understand how certain factors relate to each other. Even then, the math gets very complicated. Equations help economists see subtle points, higher order effects, changes in incentives, and how their ideas relate to earlier work. It also helps them to test their theories on data.

Choose the option which fits in best in the given blank:

1. The power of maps comes at a cost: when you distill the information, you introduce uncertainty.
2. Designing a map with the wrong audience in mind can render your map almost completely useless.
3. If they cannot be understood and interpreted by the lay man, they serve no purpose.
4. If you include every tree and back road, the map is intractable.

Explanatory Answer

Method of solving this CAT Question from Paragraph Completion:

The paragraph compares economic models to maps, stating that you choose what’s important to include in order to understand ideas better. The paragraph further states that even with this simplification, the math gets complicated, but these equations are important in that they help economists see subtle points, higher order effects and so on.

Let’s look at the answer options for the missing sentence.

Option (a) states that maps distill information to communicate powerfully, but do so at the cost of adding uncertainty to the result. But ‘uncertainty’ in economic models is not discussed in the paragraph. So, this option is ruled out.

Option (b) emphasizes the importance of designing maps with the target audience in mind. The paragraph does say that in economic models, you choose what’s important to include in order to understand how certain factors relate to each other. But this is about simplification, not about designing models to specific audiences. Also, if (b) were to fill the blank, the statement “Even then, the math gets very complicated� does not make sense. So option (b) is not the right choice.

Option (c) asserts that if maps cannot be understood and interpreted by the lay man, they don’t serve any purpose. The paragraph does not talk of economic models being designed to be simple enough to be understood by laymen.

Only option (d), which emphasizes the importance of including only relevant details in maps, seems to fit in the blank. In designing economic models, you choose what is important to include. Even with this, the math gets complicated.

The question is " Choose the Sentence that completes the Paragraph "

Hence, the answer is Sentence D

Choice D is the correct answer.