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 care was taken to avoid letting any point bias the analysis. From 'BIG DATA' by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger and Kenneth Cukier.
Which of the following can be logically inferred from the above passage?
A. Emperors who do not leave significant sculpted evidence are completely forgotten.
B. Adora produced stone carved edicts to ensure that later historians will respect him.
C. Exactitude is not critical in dealing with big data.
D. Diverse data leads to a bias in the analysis.
GATE 2014 · General Aptitude · Passage Reading · medium
Answer: Per the official answer key: D. Diverse data leads to a bias in the analysis. (The passage notes that when data was sparse, care was taken to avoid bias — implying that with diverse/abundant data, bias becomes a concern that must be managed differently.)
Identify the passage's core logical structure: Passage argument: (sparse data) => (each point critical) => (obsession with exactitude justified). Implication for big data: (abundant data) => (individual points less critical) => (exactitude less important). Therefore 'exactitude is not critical in dealing with big data' is a direct inference.
Evaluate each option: A — about emperors and sculptures; completely unrelated to the passage topic. B — about Adora producing edicts for historians; unrelated to the passage. C — 'Exactitude is not critical in dealing with big data'; directly stated or strongly implied by the passage. D — 'Diverse data leads to a bias'; the passage says sparse data led to concern about bias, not diverse data. D contradicts the passage's logic.