Reading Comprehension || RC PRACTICE SET - 55 || VARC || CAT 2021 II 20 September

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

Chief executive officer (CEO) search projects were simpler a decade ago. Client organizations sought “strategic" CEOs. A demanding board, I recall, once asked us for a perfect balance of strategic mindset and executional rigour, setting off ripples of panic within our research teams working on this corner-office recruitment.

Much has changed since, as CEO hiring has pivoted from an art to a science, but covid-19 has complicated our lives enormously. Conversations since March seek CEOs who can deal with a massively disrupted world. Our post-covid CEO needs to be a disruptive transformer for sure—that’s a hygiene factor now. The CEO must also exercise great caution, sifting through a dozen seemingly plausible business scenarios, suitably armed with “Let me tell you about 2008" wisdom. Placing bets, the CEO is expected to don a battle face and rally the team, all with newfound poise and certainty. This is a CEO job specification. Plus, our leader must know when to boogie and when to introspect. The CEO will be asked questions that are deeply existential, worthy of a top-quality crystal ball. All this, within a tight horizon.

Purposeful and charismatic, the CEO must helm Zoom chats, straddling teams, geographies and markets. And yet, the CEO must stay engaged, lest it be seen as false and farcical. The galvanizer must also connect.

The answers CEOs seek from recruiters have also evolved. Questions range from the strategically sublime “How will technology as a horizontal change the operating model?" to the logistically prosaic “That commute model I signed up for suddenly doesn’t seem so viable, does it?".

Life in the leadership recruitment business has changed considerably. Irreversibly, it feels. Sample these trends.

One, we learnt last week that multiple multi-crore hires can be closed—from the first interview to a job offer—without a single in-person meeting between the potential employer and employee. Is this a massive risk, or just the new normal? A bit of both, actually. Technology-based interviewing, deep and wide market references and diligence—on both sides—now alleviate the risk that such an online marriage entails.

Two, new psychometric means to establish “role fit" will get deployed more and more in search of CEOs. Tools that assess candidates at multiple levels—experience and competence, but increasingly personality and cultural fit ____(A)____—are getting validated. That esoteric “aloofness" CEO derailer that psychologists warned us about is emerging as the tie-breaker between two perfect fit-to-spec candidates. Does this mark the end of the “need to look her in the eye" interview format? Perhaps not, but the online-dating equivalent of the CEO recruitment world just took a giant step forward.

source: https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/opinion-how-covid-19-has-rewritten-ceo-job-specifications-11588871611499.html

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

Chief executive officer (CEO) search projects were simpler a decade ago. Client organizations sought “strategic" CEOs. A demanding board, I recall, once asked us for a perfect balance of strategic mindset and executional rigour, setting off ripples of panic within our research teams working on this corner-office recruitment.

Much has changed since, as CEO hiring has pivoted from an art to a science, but covid-19 has complicated our lives enormously. Conversations since March seek CEOs who can deal with a massively disrupted world. Our post-covid CEO needs to be a disruptive transformer for sure—that’s a hygiene factor now. The CEO must also exercise great caution, sifting through a dozen seemingly plausible business scenarios, suitably armed with “Let me tell you about 2008" wisdom. Placing bets, the CEO is expected to don a battle face and rally the team, all with newfound poise and certainty. This is a CEO job specification. Plus, our leader must know when to boogie and when to introspect. The CEO will be asked questions that are deeply existential, worthy of a top-quality crystal ball. All this, within a tight horizon.

Purposeful and charismatic, the CEO must helm Zoom chats, straddling teams, geographies and markets. And yet, the CEO must stay engaged, lest it be seen as false and farcical. The galvanizer must also connect.

The answers CEOs seek from recruiters have also evolved. Questions range from the strategically sublime “How will technology as a horizontal change the operating model?" to the logistically prosaic “That commute model I signed up for suddenly doesn’t seem so viable, does it?".

Life in the leadership recruitment business has changed considerably. Irreversibly, it feels. Sample these trends.

One, we learnt last week that multiple multi-crore hires can be closed—from the first interview to a job offer—without a single in-person meeting between the potential employer and employee. Is this a massive risk, or just the new normal? A bit of both, actually. Technology-based interviewing, deep and wide market references and diligence—on both sides—now alleviate the risk that such an online marriage entails.

Two, new psychometric means to establish “role fit" will get deployed more and more in search of CEOs. Tools that assess candidates at multiple levels—experience and competence, but increasingly personality and cultural fit ____(A)____—are getting validated. That esoteric “aloofness" CEO derailer that psychologists warned us about is emerging as the tie-breaker between two perfect fit-to-spec candidates. Does this mark the end of the “need to look her in the eye" interview format? Perhaps not, but the online-dating equivalent of the CEO recruitment world just took a giant step forward.

source: https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/opinion-how-covid-19-has-rewritten-ceo-job-specifications-11588871611499.html

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

Chief executive officer (CEO) search projects were simpler a decade ago. Client organizations sought “strategic" CEOs. A demanding board, I recall, once asked us for a perfect balance of strategic mindset and executional rigour, setting off ripples of panic within our research teams working on this corner-office recruitment.

Much has changed since, as CEO hiring has pivoted from an art to a science, but covid-19 has complicated our lives enormously. Conversations since March seek CEOs who can deal with a massively disrupted world. Our post-covid CEO needs to be a disruptive transformer for sure—that’s a hygiene factor now. The CEO must also exercise great caution, sifting through a dozen seemingly plausible business scenarios, suitably armed with “Let me tell you about 2008" wisdom. Placing bets, the CEO is expected to don a battle face and rally the team, all with newfound poise and certainty. This is a CEO job specification. Plus, our leader must know when to boogie and when to introspect. The CEO will be asked questions that are deeply existential, worthy of a top-quality crystal ball. All this, within a tight horizon.

Purposeful and charismatic, the CEO must helm Zoom chats, straddling teams, geographies and markets. And yet, the CEO must stay engaged, lest it be seen as false and farcical. The galvanizer must also connect.

The answers CEOs seek from recruiters have also evolved. Questions range from the strategically sublime “How will technology as a horizontal change the operating model?" to the logistically prosaic “That commute model I signed up for suddenly doesn’t seem so viable, does it?".

Life in the leadership recruitment business has changed considerably. Irreversibly, it feels. Sample these trends.

One, we learnt last week that multiple multi-crore hires can be closed—from the first interview to a job offer—without a single in-person meeting between the potential employer and employee. Is this a massive risk, or just the new normal? A bit of both, actually. Technology-based interviewing, deep and wide market references and diligence—on both sides—now alleviate the risk that such an online marriage entails.

Two, new psychometric means to establish “role fit" will get deployed more and more in search of CEOs. Tools that assess candidates at multiple levels—experience and competence, but increasingly personality and cultural fit ____(A)____—are getting validated. That esoteric “aloofness" CEO derailer that psychologists warned us about is emerging as the tie-breaker between two perfect fit-to-spec candidates. Does this mark the end of the “need to look her in the eye" interview format? Perhaps not, but the online-dating equivalent of the CEO recruitment world just took a giant step forward.

source: https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/opinion-how-covid-19-has-rewritten-ceo-job-specifications-11588871611499.html

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

Chief executive officer (CEO) search projects were simpler a decade ago. Client organizations sought “strategic" CEOs. A demanding board, I recall, once asked us for a perfect balance of strategic mindset and executional rigour, setting off ripples of panic within our research teams working on this corner-office recruitment.

Much has changed since, as CEO hiring has pivoted from an art to a science, but covid-19 has complicated our lives enormously. Conversations since March seek CEOs who can deal with a massively disrupted world. Our post-covid CEO needs to be a disruptive transformer for sure—that’s a hygiene factor now. The CEO must also exercise great caution, sifting through a dozen seemingly plausible business scenarios, suitably armed with “Let me tell you about 2008" wisdom. Placing bets, the CEO is expected to don a battle face and rally the team, all with newfound poise and certainty. This is a CEO job specification. Plus, our leader must know when to boogie and when to introspect. The CEO will be asked questions that are deeply existential, worthy of a top-quality crystal ball. All this, within a tight horizon.

Purposeful and charismatic, the CEO must helm Zoom chats, straddling teams, geographies and markets. And yet, the CEO must stay engaged, lest it be seen as false and farcical. The galvanizer must also connect.

The answers CEOs seek from recruiters have also evolved. Questions range from the strategically sublime “How will technology as a horizontal change the operating model?" to the logistically prosaic “That commute model I signed up for suddenly doesn’t seem so viable, does it?".

Life in the leadership recruitment business has changed considerably. Irreversibly, it feels. Sample these trends.

One, we learnt last week that multiple multi-crore hires can be closed—from the first interview to a job offer—without a single in-person meeting between the potential employer and employee. Is this a massive risk, or just the new normal? A bit of both, actually. Technology-based interviewing, deep and wide market references and diligence—on both sides—now alleviate the risk that such an online marriage entails.

Two, new psychometric means to establish “role fit" will get deployed more and more in search of CEOs. Tools that assess candidates at multiple levels—experience and competence, but increasingly personality and cultural fit ____(A)____—are getting validated. That esoteric “aloofness" CEO derailer that psychologists warned us about is emerging as the tie-breaker between two perfect fit-to-spec candidates. Does this mark the end of the “need to look her in the eye" interview format? Perhaps not, but the online-dating equivalent of the CEO recruitment world just took a giant step forward.

source: https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/opinion-how-covid-19-has-rewritten-ceo-job-specifications-11588871611499.html

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

Chief executive officer (CEO) search projects were simpler a decade ago. Client organizations sought “strategic" CEOs. A demanding board, I recall, once asked us for a perfect balance of strategic mindset and executional rigour, setting off ripples of panic within our research teams working on this corner-office recruitment.

Much has changed since, as CEO hiring has pivoted from an art to a science, but covid-19 has complicated our lives enormously. Conversations since March seek CEOs who can deal with a massively disrupted world. Our post-covid CEO needs to be a disruptive transformer for sure—that’s a hygiene factor now. The CEO must also exercise great caution, sifting through a dozen seemingly plausible business scenarios, suitably armed with “Let me tell you about 2008" wisdom. Placing bets, the CEO is expected to don a battle face and rally the team, all with newfound poise and certainty. This is a CEO job specification. Plus, our leader must know when to boogie and when to introspect. The CEO will be asked questions that are deeply existential, worthy of a top-quality crystal ball. All this, within a tight horizon.

Purposeful and charismatic, the CEO must helm Zoom chats, straddling teams, geographies and markets. And yet, the CEO must stay engaged, lest it be seen as false and farcical. The galvanizer must also connect.

The answers CEOs seek from recruiters have also evolved. Questions range from the strategically sublime “How will technology as a horizontal change the operating model?" to the logistically prosaic “That commute model I signed up for suddenly doesn’t seem so viable, does it?".

Life in the leadership recruitment business has changed considerably. Irreversibly, it feels. Sample these trends.

One, we learnt last week that multiple multi-crore hires can be closed—from the first interview to a job offer—without a single in-person meeting between the potential employer and employee. Is this a massive risk, or just the new normal? A bit of both, actually. Technology-based interviewing, deep and wide market references and diligence—on both sides—now alleviate the risk that such an online marriage entails.

Two, new psychometric means to establish “role fit" will get deployed more and more in search of CEOs. Tools that assess candidates at multiple levels—experience and competence, but increasingly personality and cultural fit ____(A)____—are getting validated. That esoteric “aloofness" CEO derailer that psychologists warned us about is emerging as the tie-breaker between two perfect fit-to-spec candidates. Does this mark the end of the “need to look her in the eye" interview format? Perhaps not, but the online-dating equivalent of the CEO recruitment world just took a giant step forward.

source: https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/opinion-how-covid-19-has-rewritten-ceo-job-specifications-11588871611499.html

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

Chief executive officer (CEO) search projects were simpler a decade ago. Client organizations sought “strategic" CEOs. A demanding board, I recall, once asked us for a perfect balance of strategic mindset and executional rigour, setting off ripples of panic within our research teams working on this corner-office recruitment.

Much has changed since, as CEO hiring has pivoted from an art to a science, but covid-19 has complicated our lives enormously. Conversations since March seek CEOs who can deal with a massively disrupted world. Our post-covid CEO needs to be a disruptive transformer for sure—that’s a hygiene factor now. The CEO must also exercise great caution, sifting through a dozen seemingly plausible business scenarios, suitably armed with “Let me tell you about 2008" wisdom. Placing bets, the CEO is expected to don a battle face and rally the team, all with newfound poise and certainty. This is a CEO job specification. Plus, our leader must know when to boogie and when to introspect. The CEO will be asked questions that are deeply existential, worthy of a top-quality crystal ball. All this, within a tight horizon.

Purposeful and charismatic, the CEO must helm Zoom chats, straddling teams, geographies and markets. And yet, the CEO must stay engaged, lest it be seen as false and farcical. The galvanizer must also connect.

The answers CEOs seek from recruiters have also evolved. Questions range from the strategically sublime “How will technology as a horizontal change the operating model?" to the logistically prosaic “That commute model I signed up for suddenly doesn’t seem so viable, does it?".

Life in the leadership recruitment business has changed considerably. Irreversibly, it feels. Sample these trends.

One, we learnt last week that multiple multi-crore hires can be closed—from the first interview to a job offer—without a single in-person meeting between the potential employer and employee. Is this a massive risk, or just the new normal? A bit of both, actually. Technology-based interviewing, deep and wide market references and diligence—on both sides—now alleviate the risk that such an online marriage entails.

Two, new psychometric means to establish “role fit" will get deployed more and more in search of CEOs. Tools that assess candidates at multiple levels—experience and competence, but increasingly personality and cultural fit ____(A)____—are getting validated. That esoteric “aloofness" CEO derailer that psychologists warned us about is emerging as the tie-breaker between two perfect fit-to-spec candidates. Does this mark the end of the “need to look her in the eye" interview format? Perhaps not, but the online-dating equivalent of the CEO recruitment world just took a giant step forward.

source: https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/opinion-how-covid-19-has-rewritten-ceo-job-specifications-11588871611499.html

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

Poor women in India’s villages are more likely to take up jobs if their wages can be deposited into their bank accounts and they can be trained in digital banking, a September 2019 study by the US-based National Bureau of Economic Research has concluded. This eases patriarchal social norms and increases empowerment among the one section of Indian society with the least labour market experience, it added.

If poor, rural women can control their access to wages through bank accounts and receive adequate training for handling it, they are more likely to join or continue in the labour workforce in India, the study found. It also helped in accommodating changes in gender norms on women going to work: The study found that women who received digital deposits and training were more likely to hold female work in high regard. Although their husbands did not change their personal beliefs, they became less likely to report that husbands suffer social costs when their wives work.

Researchers used randomised control trials to study the effects of channelling women’s wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, into their individually-controlled bank accounts, and not the account of the head of their family, typically a man. Women who received digital wage deposits as well as the training to use their bank accounts, were found to be working more, as we said earlier, in both jobs generated by MGNREGS and the private sector. This increase occurred even though the market wage remained static.

The study was conducted in collaboration with the Madhya Pradesh state government and the rural development ministry in “socially conservative” areas in the northern pockets of the state – Gwalior, Morena, Sheopur and Shivpur.

“Despite robust economic growth, the female labour force participation rate has declined from 37% in 1990 to 28% in 2015, making Indian women some of the least employed in the world,” the study noted. India’s growth trajectory and the well-being of its population, will depend on how well it uses public policy to lower barriers to female employment, it said. Policy, when appropriately designed, can empower women in homes and even dilute common patriarchal norms, said Charity Troyer Moore, co-author of the study and director for South Asia Economics Research at The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Centre for International and Area Studies at Yale University.

“By working with women to open accounts, training them on how to use the accounts, and linking those accounts to NREGS so they could receive their wages as mandated, we see important improvements in women’s financial activity, paid work, especially in the private sector, and views on women and work,” she said.

Source: https://scroll.in/article/950211/what-women-in-rural-madhya-pradesh-want-jobs-with-direct-access-to-their-wages

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

Poor women in India’s villages are more likely to take up jobs if their wages can be deposited into their bank accounts and they can be trained in digital banking, a September 2019 study by the US-based National Bureau of Economic Research has concluded. This eases patriarchal social norms and increases empowerment among the one section of Indian society with the least labour market experience, it added.

If poor, rural women can control their access to wages through bank accounts and receive adequate training for handling it, they are more likely to join or continue in the labour workforce in India, the study found. It also helped in accommodating changes in gender norms on women going to work: The study found that women who received digital deposits and training were more likely to hold female work in high regard. Although their husbands did not change their personal beliefs, they became less likely to report that husbands suffer social costs when their wives work.

Researchers used randomised control trials to study the effects of channelling women’s wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, into their individually-controlled bank accounts, and not the account of the head of their family, typically a man. Women who received digital wage deposits as well as the training to use their bank accounts, were found to be working more, as we said earlier, in both jobs generated by MGNREGS and the private sector. This increase occurred even though the market wage remained static.

The study was conducted in collaboration with the Madhya Pradesh state government and the rural development ministry in “socially conservative” areas in the northern pockets of the state – Gwalior, Morena, Sheopur and Shivpur.

“Despite robust economic growth, the female labour force participation rate has declined from 37% in 1990 to 28% in 2015, making Indian women some of the least employed in the world,” the study noted. India’s growth trajectory and the well-being of its population, will depend on how well it uses public policy to lower barriers to female employment, it said. Policy, when appropriately designed, can empower women in homes and even dilute common patriarchal norms, said Charity Troyer Moore, co-author of the study and director for South Asia Economics Research at The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Centre for International and Area Studies at Yale University.

“By working with women to open accounts, training them on how to use the accounts, and linking those accounts to NREGS so they could receive their wages as mandated, we see important improvements in women’s financial activity, paid work, especially in the private sector, and views on women and work,” she said.

Source: https://scroll.in/article/950211/what-women-in-rural-madhya-pradesh-want-jobs-with-direct-access-to-their-wages

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

Poor women in India’s villages are more likely to take up jobs if their wages can be deposited into their bank accounts and they can be trained in digital banking, a September 2019 study by the US-based National Bureau of Economic Research has concluded. This eases patriarchal social norms and increases empowerment among the one section of Indian society with the least labour market experience, it added.

If poor, rural women can control their access to wages through bank accounts and receive adequate training for handling it, they are more likely to join or continue in the labour workforce in India, the study found. It also helped in accommodating changes in gender norms on women going to work: The study found that women who received digital deposits and training were more likely to hold female work in high regard. Although their husbands did not change their personal beliefs, they became less likely to report that husbands suffer social costs when their wives work.

Researchers used randomised control trials to study the effects of channelling women’s wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, into their individually-controlled bank accounts, and not the account of the head of their family, typically a man. Women who received digital wage deposits as well as the training to use their bank accounts, were found to be working more, as we said earlier, in both jobs generated by MGNREGS and the private sector. This increase occurred even though the market wage remained static.

The study was conducted in collaboration with the Madhya Pradesh state government and the rural development ministry in “socially conservative” areas in the northern pockets of the state – Gwalior, Morena, Sheopur and Shivpur.

“Despite robust economic growth, the female labour force participation rate has declined from 37% in 1990 to 28% in 2015, making Indian women some of the least employed in the world,” the study noted. India’s growth trajectory and the well-being of its population, will depend on how well it uses public policy to lower barriers to female employment, it said. Policy, when appropriately designed, can empower women in homes and even dilute common patriarchal norms, said Charity Troyer Moore, co-author of the study and director for South Asia Economics Research at The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Centre for International and Area Studies at Yale University.

“By working with women to open accounts, training them on how to use the accounts, and linking those accounts to NREGS so they could receive their wages as mandated, we see important improvements in women’s financial activity, paid work, especially in the private sector, and views on women and work,” she said.

Source: https://scroll.in/article/950211/what-women-in-rural-madhya-pradesh-want-jobs-with-direct-access-to-their-wages

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow. Certain words are printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of these.

Poor women in India’s villages are more likely to take up jobs if their wages can be deposited into their bank accounts and they can be trained in digital banking, a September 2019 study by the US-based National Bureau of Economic Research has concluded. This eases patriarchal social norms and increases empowerment among the one section of Indian society with the least labour market experience, it added.

If poor, rural women can control their access to wages through bank accounts and receive adequate training for handling it, they are more likely to join or continue in the labour workforce in India, the study found. It also helped in accommodating changes in gender norms on women going to work: The study found that women who received digital deposits and training were more likely to hold female work in high regard. Although their husbands did not change their personal beliefs, they became less likely to report that husbands suffer social costs when their wives work.

Researchers used randomised control trials to study the effects of channelling women’s wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, into their individually-controlled bank accounts, and not the account of the head of their family, typically a man. Women who received digital wage deposits as well as the training to use their bank accounts, were found to be working more, as we said earlier, in both jobs generated by MGNREGS and the private sector. This increase occurred even though the market wage remained static.

The study was conducted in collaboration with the Madhya Pradesh state government and the rural development ministry in “socially conservative” areas in the northern pockets of the state – Gwalior, Morena, Sheopur and Shivpur.

“Despite robust economic growth, the female labour force participation rate has declined from 37% in 1990 to 28% in 2015, making Indian women some of the least employed in the world,” the study noted. India’s growth trajectory and the well-being of its population, will depend on how well it uses public policy to lower barriers to female employment, it said. Policy, when appropriately designed, can empower women in homes and even dilute common patriarchal norms, said Charity Troyer Moore, co-author of the study and director for South Asia Economics Research at The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Centre for International and Area Studies at Yale University.

“By working with women to open accounts, training them on how to use the accounts, and linking those accounts to NREGS so they could receive their wages as mandated, we see important improvements in women’s financial activity, paid work, especially in the private sector, and views on women and work,” she said.

Source: https://scroll.in/article/950211/what-women-in-rural-madhya-pradesh-want-jobs-with-direct-access-to-their-wages