CAT 2018 Slot 2 VARC Question & Solution
Passage
Read the passage carefully and answer the questions given
More and more companies, government agencies, educational institutions and philanthropic organisations are today in the grip of a new phenomenon: ‘metric fixation’. The key components of metric fixation are the belief that it is possible - and desirable - to replace professional judgment (acquired through personal experience and talent) with numerical indicators of comparative performance based upon standardised data (metrics); and that the best way to motivate people within these organisations is by attaching rewards and penalties to their measured performance.
The rewards can be monetary, in the form of pay for performance, say, or reputational, in the form of college rankings, hospital ratings, surgical report cards and so on. But the most dramatic negative effect of metric fixation is its propensity to incentivise gaming: that is, encouraging professionals to maximise the metrics in ways that are at odds with the larger purpose of the organisation. If the rate of major crimes in a district becomes the metric according to which police officers are promoted, then some officers will respond by simply not recording crimes or downgrading them from major offences to misdemeanours. Or take the case of surgeons. When the metrics of success and failure are made public - affecting their reputation and income - some surgeons will improve their metric scores by refusing to operate on patients with more complex problems, whose surgical outcomes are more likely to be negative. Who suffers? The patients who don’t get operated upon.
When reward is tied to measured performance, metric fixation invites just this sort of gaming. But metric fixation also leads to a variety of more subtle unintended negative consequences. These include goal displacement, which comes in many varieties: when performance is judged by a few measures, and the stakes are high (keeping one’s job, getting a pay rise or raising the stock price at the time that stock options are vested), people focus on satisfying those measures - often at the expense of other, more important organisational goals that are not measured. The best-known example is ‘teaching to the test’, a widespread phenomenon that has distorted primary and secondary education in the United States since the adoption of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.
Short-termism is another negative. Measured performance encourages what the US sociologist Robert K Merton in 1936 called ‘the imperious immediacy of interests … where the actor’s paramount concern with the foreseen immediate consequences excludes consideration of further or other consequences’. In short, advancing short-term goals at the expense of long-range considerations. This problem is endemic to publicly traded corporations that sacrifice long-term research and development, and the development of their staff, to the perceived imperatives of the quarterly report.
Question 1
All of the following can be a possible feature of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, EXCEPT:
Solution:
The author has criticized the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. So, it should be against what the author has supported in the passage. We know that the author has been critical of metric fixation. Therefore, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 must have the features of metric fixation.
Option C cannot be a feature of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 as it mentions the subjective evaluation of students based on their participation in the class which is against the theory of metric fixation.
Hence, option C is the correct answer.
Question 2
What main point does the author want to convey through the examples of the police officer and the surgeon?
Solution:
In the second paragraph, the author discusses that one of the major drawbacks of metric fixation is the rise in unethical behaviour in order to maximize the metrics. The author, further, goes on to give the examples of the police officer and the surgeon to substantiate his claims. Therefore, option B is the correct answer.
Option A does not mention that the influence would be unethical and harmful in nature.
Option C is the underlying message of the author but, he does not explicitly provide the examples of the police officer and the surgeon to prove this.
Option D is too broad and has no specifics about the unethical behaviour which could be encouraged by metric fixation.
Question 3
Which of the following is NOT a consequence of the 'metric fixation' phenomenon mentioned in the passage?
Solution:
From the second paragraph, we can say that metric fixation encourages professionals to maximize the metrics in ways that are at odds with the larger purpose of the organization. Option A is a consequence of metric fixation.
From the third paragraph, we can infer that metric fixation leads to goal displacement.
The author has stated short-termism as a consequence of metric fixation in the penultimate paragraph.
Option B as a consequence of metric fixation has not been discussed in the paragraph.
Hence, option B is the correct answer.
Question 4
Of the following, which would have added the least depth to the author’s argument?
Solution:
In the passage, the author has discussed the ill-effects of metric fixation. He has discussed gaming of the metrics-based performance system in detail. By providing more real-life illustrations of the same, the author would not have added any value to the main argument.
Options A, B and C are relevant to the discussion and will surely add weight to the main idea of the passage.
Hence, option D is the correct answer.
Question 5
What is the main idea that the author is trying to highlight in the passage?
Solution:
The author has criticized the method of metric fixation in the passage. He has stated that metric fixation will lead professionals to adhere to practices that are at odds with the larger purpose of the organization. He has also explained that metric fixation will lead to goal displacement. In this light, option B is the most relevant.
Option A is incorrect because it is against the author's view.
Option C is narrow as it focuses on short-termism only which is one of the ill-effects of metric fixation as mentioned in the passage.
Option D does not state that the author is criticizing the metric fixation method to measure the performance.
Hence, option B is the correct answer.