CAT 2022 Slot 3 VARC Question & Solution

Reading ComprehensionEasy

Question

The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.

“It does seem to me that the job of comedy is to offend, or have the potential to offend, and it cannot be drained of that potential,” Rowan Atkinson said of cancel culture.“Every joke has a victim. That’s the definition of a joke. Someone or something or an idea is made to look ridiculous.” The Netflix star continued, “I think you’ve got to be very, very careful about saying what you’re allowed to make jokes about. You’ve always got to kick up? Really?” He added, “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”

Options

All jokes target someone and one should be able to joke about anyone in the society, which is inconsistent with cancel culture.

Every joke needs a victim and one needs to include people from lower down the society and not just the upper class.

Victims of jokes must not only be politicians and royalty, but also arrogant people from lower classes should be mentioned by comedians.

Cancel culture does not understand the role and duty of comedians, which is to deride and mock everyone.

Solution

The main ideas of the passage are:

i) The job of a joke is to offend its target(victim) irrespective of its status.

ii) The cancel culture deems it inappropriate to joke about people deemed lower in society.

Option A: This option includes both the main points and hence is the correct answer.

Option B: This is a distorted option. The ideas in the paragraph are not intended to persuade to include people from the lower class in the joke. Thus, this is not the correct answer.

Option C: Again, this is a distorted option and can be eliminated based on the explanation given in option B.

Option D: This is also a distorted option, as nowhere in the passage the duties of a comedian are mentioned. Thus, this is not the correct option.

Thus, the correct option is A.