Determining the root cause plays a very important role in Problem solving. Wrong diagnosis of the causes will result in catastrophic failures. Recently one of my close friends was treated for six months for "urinary infection" by a doctor till the other doctor diagnosed the problem as due to "Prostrate cancer". Luckily there was less damage caused due to the wrong diagnosis and the doctor was able to successfully control the spread. Many of the test takers of CAT fail to identify the root cause of the problems and they lose their track of the solution. The human tendency is generally to attend to the "symptoms"  than to go to the "root ot Cause". A manager can be successful only if he possesses the skill of going to the root cause. The CAT examiners have been testing this skill through well designed problems for a long time.