Reading Comprehension: Procrastination and Planning Fallacy

XAT 2023 · VALR · Medium · Reading Comprehension

Passage / data set

Read the passage below and answer the THREE questions that follow.

Socrates believed that akrasia (meaning procrastination) was, strictly speaking, impossible, since we could not want what is bad for us; if we act against our own interests, it must be because we don't know what's right. Loewenstein, similarly, is inclined to see the procrastinator as led astray by the "visceral" rewards of the present. As the nineteenthcentury Scottish economist John Rae put it, "The prospects of future good, which future years may hold on us, seem at such a moment dull and dubious, and are apt to be slighted, for objects on which the daylight is falling strongly, and showing us in all their freshness just within our grasp." Loewenstein also suggests that our memory for the intensity of visceral rewards is deficient: when we put off preparing for that meeting by telling ourselves that we'll do it tomorrow, we fail to take into account that tomorrow the temptation to put off work will be just as strong.

Ignorance might also affect procrastination through what the social scientist Jon Elster calls "the planning fallacy." Elster thinks that people underestimate the time "it will take them to complete a given task, partly because they fail to take account of how long it has taken them to complete similar projects in the past and partly because they rely on smooth scenarios in which accidents or unforeseen problems never occur."

Question 1 of 3

According to the passage, in regard to time, which of the following statements gives the BEST reason for procrastination?

  1. A.

    Time is estimated according to the new task

  2. B.

    Time is taken as linear in the task

  3. C.

    Time is not planned according to the task

  4. D.

    Time is underestimated for a particular task

  5. E.

    Time is not taken into account

Question 2 of 3

Which of the following statements can be BEST inferred from the passage about procrastination?

  1. A.

    It is a success of self-regulation and planning.

  2. B.

    It is a mistake that happens due to myopic vision and linear thinking.

  3. C.

    It is an act against our own interests because of our ignorance.

  4. D.

    It is a tendency of postponing the present work to the future.

  5. E.

    It is an irrational delay of task despite potentially negative consequences.

Question 3 of 3

Which of the following is the meaning that comes CLOSEST to "our memory for the intensity of visceral rewards is deficient" as suggested by Loewenstein?

  1. A.

    Our brain does not differentiate memories of different rewards we get by procrastinating.

  2. B.

    Our brain does not support us with memories which can stop us from procrastinating further.

  3. C.

    Our brain partially captures the memory of rewards we get by procrastination.

  4. D.

    Our brain does not support us in recalling intense memories while procrastinating further.

  5. E.

    Our brain does not capture the intensity of pleasure we get by procrastination.

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