GATE AG 2014 • Q7 MCQ • 2 Marks

Section 8: General Aptitude

Verbal Aptitude

Subtopic: Reading Comprehension

Question Statement:

Moving into a world of big data will require us to change our thinking about the merits of exactitude. To apply the conventional mindset of measurement to the digital, connected world of the twenty-first century is to miss a crucial point. As mentioned earlier, the obsession with exactness is an artefact of the information-deprived analog era. When data was sparse, every data point was critical, and thus great care was taken to avoid letting any point bias the analysis. — From “BIG DATA” Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and Kenneth Cukier The main point of the paragraph is:

Options:

  • (A) The twenty-first century is a digital world
  • (B) Big data is obsessed with exactness
  • (C) Exactitude is not critical in dealing with big data
  • (D) Sparse data leads to a bias in the analysis

Official Answer Key:

C

Step-by-Step Solution & Explanation

The passage's core claim, restated across all three sentences, is that the old obsession with exact measurement was a product of *data scarcity*, and this mindset must change for the data-rich era — i.e., exactness is no longer the critical requirement it once was. (A) is a background fact, not the argument. (B) inverts the passage's point (it says the OLD era was obsessed with exactness, not big data). (D) restates a supporting detail, not the main point. Answer: (C).

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