Free Verbal Ability questions with answers for MBA CET

Grammar, vocabulary, sentence correction, para jumbles, odd sentence out and critical reasoning - the verbal questions asked in MBA CET and other management entrance exams. These 102 questions are also useful for CAT, MAT and ATMA. Tap “Show answer” under any question for the correct option and the explanation.

Question 101
Read the argument carefully and identify the option that most seriously weakens it. After a newspaper reduced the monthly price of its individual digital subscription, its total digital subscription revenue increased by 12% in the following quarter. Management concluded that the price reduction had caused the revenue increase and proposed a further price cut to generate even higher revenue. Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens management's reasoning?
- (A)The number of individual subscribers increased after the price reduction.
- (B)Several competing newspapers increased their subscription prices during the same period.
- (C)The newspaper's subscriber cancellation rate declined following the price reduction.
- (D)The newspaper's advertising revenue also increased during the quarter.
- (E)Nearly all the increase in digital subscription revenue came from multi-year institutional contracts whose prices had been fixed before the individual subscription price was reduced.
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: (E) Nearly all the increase in digital subscription revenue came from multi-year institutional contracts whose prices had been fixed before the individual subscription price was reduced.
Management argues from 'revenue rose after the price cut' to 'the price cut caused the rise'. To weaken this, we need a fact showing that the rise came from something else. (E) does that most strongly: nearly all the extra revenue came from institutional contracts priced before the cut, so the individual price reduction can hardly have caused the increase, and a further cut would not be expected to raise revenue. (A) and (C) support the argument (more subscribers, fewer cancellations after the cut). (D) is about advertising revenue, which is outside the claim. (B) suggests an alternative reason for gaining subscribers, but the extra subscribers could still have come from the cut, so it weakens the argument far less than (E), which removes the link almost completely.
Question 102
Select the sentence that most logically completes the paragraph. One might assume that greater access to information necessarily produces better judgments. Yet facts do not enter decisions unsorted: they are selected, ranked, and interpreted through existing commitments. When contradictory evidence is plentiful, an individual may become more confident simply by drawing upon an ever-larger subset of information that confirms an earlier belief. ______
- (A)Consequently, the value of additional information depends partly on whether individuals can critically examine their own criteria for selecting evidence.
- (B)Therefore, information scarcity is invariably more conducive to sound decisions than information abundance.
- (C)In practice, once sufficient facts become available, individuals reliably abandon their initial beliefs.
- (D)As a result, experts should restrict public access to information that contradicts prevailing opinion.
- (E)Hence, the accuracy of a conclusion can be assessed solely by counting the facts cited in its support.
Show answer and explanation
Correct answer: (A) Consequently, the value of additional information depends partly on whether individuals can critically examine their own criteria for selecting evidence.
The paragraph argues that more information does not automatically improve judgment, because people select and interpret facts to fit what they already believe (confirmation bias). A sound conclusion is a measured one: the usefulness of extra information depends on whether people examine how they choose their evidence. (A) is correct. (B) is too extreme ('invariably') and the paragraph does not praise scarcity. (C) contradicts the paragraph, which says people hold on to their beliefs. (D) is an unsupported recommendation about restricting information. (E) is contradicted by the argument - counting facts says nothing about accuracy when facts are selectively chosen.

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