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CAT VARC Practice Test 9

CAT VARC • Medium • 12 Questions
Progress 0 / 12
25:00

The Quiet Return of the Night Train

Night trains were once expected to vanish. Low cost airlines offered faster journeys across Europe, and railway companies, faced with ageing carriages and high running costs, retired many sleeper services. In recent years, however, several have returned, and some are fully booked weeks in advance.

The revival owes something to changing attitudes to flying. Travellers who worry about the carbon cost of short flights have started to look for alternatives, and a sleeper train offers one that also saves a night's hotel bill. Yet sentiment alone would not keep services running. The operators that have succeeded tend to run fewer, better trains on routes where the daytime journey would be too long for comfort, such as eight to twelve hours, and they invest in private cabins, which can be sold at higher prices.

Not every route will work. On corridors served by fast day trains, a night train has little to offer, and cross border services still depend on timetables and track fees negotiated by several national authorities. The comeback is therefore best seen as a niche that has found its market, not as the start of a general return to the rail network of the past.

Passage 1 Questions Questions 1-4
1

The passage is mainly about:

2

According to the passage, successful night train operators typically:

3

The author describes the comeback as 'a niche that has found its market' to suggest that it:

4

The sentence 'Yet sentiment alone would not keep services running' serves to:

Why We Misjudge Risk

People tend to fear dramatic dangers more than ordinary ones. Air crashes and shark attacks fill the news, while far more people are harmed by heart disease or road accidents. Psychologists explain this partly through the availability of examples: when an event is easy to picture because we have seen vivid reports of it, we judge it to be more likely.

This bias is not irrational in every case. A rare disaster that affects many people at once may rightly worry a government more than a larger number of scattered harms, because the whole society must respond to it. The difficulty arises when individuals use the same instinct to decide how to spend their own time and money, for example by avoiding flights but driving long distances instead.

Better decisions need two habits. The first is to ask how often something actually happens, using figures rather than impressions. The second is to compare risks that are alike, because a choice between two ways of travelling is easier to judge than a choice between a rare danger and a familiar one.

Passage 2 Questions Questions 5-8
5

The 'availability of examples' refers to the tendency to:

6

The author's view of the fear of rare disasters is that it:

7

The example of avoiding flights but driving long distances shows:

8

The two habits recommended in the last paragraph are:

Type in the answer for the para-jumble and odd-sentence questions. For the rest, choose the best option.

Verbal Ability Questions Questions 9-12
9

The four sentences below, labelled 1, 2, 3 and 4, form a coherent paragraph when arranged in the right order. Type the correct order as a four-digit sequence (for example, 1234). 1. Time thus became something that could be measured, shared and enforced. 2. Before it, communities relied on church bells and the position of the sun. 3. The mechanical clock changed how people organised their day. 4. Once clocks appeared in town squares, shops and workshops began to open and close at fixed hours.

10

Four of the five sentences below form a coherent paragraph; one is out of place. Type the number of the odd sentence. 1. Tropical rainforests receive heavy rainfall throughout the year. 2. The tall canopy blocks most sunlight from reaching the forest floor. 3. Many species of plants and animals live only in a single layer of the forest. 4. The Great Wall of China was built over many centuries to protect against invasion. 5. Clearing the forest for farmland threatens this diversity.

11

Choose the option that best summarises the following paragraph. Fast fashion offers cheap clothes that follow trends within weeks. Yet the low price hides costs: garments wear out quickly, textile waste is rising and workers in factories are often poorly paid. Some shoppers are responding by buying fewer, longer lasting items.

12

Choose the option that best summarises the following paragraph. A rule that applies to everyone equally can still affect people unequally. A fine of the same amount is a minor inconvenience to a wealthy driver and a serious burden to a poor one. Some countries therefore set fines as a proportion of income.

What is in this test

  • Passage 1, questions 1-4
  • Passage 2, questions 5-8
  • Verbal Ability, questions 9-12

12 questions in 25 minutes, marked +3 for a correct answer and -1 for a wrong multiple choice answer, with no penalty on type in the answer questions. When you finish you get your marks, a section breakdown and a written explanation for every question. Learn the method first on the topic practice pages and keep the formula sheet handy while you review.