CAT 2025Slot 3VARCQuestion & SolutionQues & Sol

Verbal AbilityMedium

Question

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

In investigating memory-beliefs, there are certain points which must be borne in mind. In the first place, everything constituting a memory-belief is happening now, not in that past time to which the belief is said to refer. It is not logically necessary to the existence of a memory-belief that the event remembered should have occurred, or even that the past should have existed at all. There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that “remembered” a wholly unreal past. There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago. Hence the occurrences which are CALLED knowledge of the past are logically independent of the past; they are wholly analysable into present contents, which might, theoretically, be just what they are even if no past had existed.

Options

When we discuss the concept of memory-beliefs, we must understand that it is not logically impossible for the event remembered to have never happened at all; it could just be a figment of our imagination.

Memory-beliefs depend wholly on what is remembered in the present, and not on anything else; just as it is not logically impossible that the world came into being five minutes ago, and that everyone now just remembers a wholly imaginary past for it.

When investigating memory beliefs, we must keep in mind that an actual past event is not a prerequisite for a memory-belief to exist, and that what we know of the past could theoretically not need a past at all.

That which we call ‘knowledge of the past’ is logically independent of the past, since the act of remembering which forms memory-beliefs happens in the present, and does not need to be based in real past occurrences, or even need a past at all.

Solution

1. Main Idea of the Passage

The passage argues that memory-beliefs exist only in the present and do not logically require an actual past. It explains that:

Remembering happens now, in the present moment
There is no logical necessity that the remembered event must have actually occurred
The example of the world beginning “five minutes ago” shows that our apparent knowledge of the past cannot logically rule out this possibility

Therefore, memory and knowledge of the past are logically separate from whether the past truly happened at all.

2. Explanation of the Correct Answer

Why Option D Is Correct

Option D best represents the full argument of the passage because it:

Clearly states that knowledge of the past is logically independent of the past itself
Connects memory-beliefs to what is happening in our minds in the present
Includes the crucial idea that:
- Actual past events
- Or even the existence of a past at all
  are not logically necessary for memory-beliefs to exist

This option captures both the logical structure and the philosophical conclusion of the passage.

3. Why the Other Options Are Incorrect

Option A:
- Focuses mainly on imagination
- Misses the key idea of the logical independence of the past
Option B:
- Overemphasizes the “five minutes ago” example
- Fails to address the broader point about memory-beliefs
Option C:
- Comes close to the passage’s meaning
- But does not clearly state that our knowledge of the past is logically separate from the past itself

Final Answer

Correct Answer: Option D