NinetynineCAT 2022 Slot 3 VARC Q22 Sentence Placement
Question 22 of the Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VARC) section, CAT 2022 Slot 3, with CAT's official answer and a worked solution.
There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide in which blank (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: When people socially learn from each other, they often learn without understanding why what they're copying-the beliefs and behaviours and technologies and know-how-works.
Paragraph: ___(1)___. The dual-inheritance theory ....says....that inheritance is itself an evolutionary system. It has variation. What makes us a new kind of animal, and so different and successful as a species, is we rely heavily on social learning, to the point where socially acquired information is effectively a second line of inheritance, the first being our genes.... ___(2)___. People tend to home in on who seems to be the smartest or most successful person around, as well as what everybody seems to be doing-the majority of people have something worth learning. ___(3)___. When you repeat this process over time, you can get, around the world, cultural packages-beliefs or behaviours or technology or other solutions-that are adapted to the local conditions. People have different psychologies, effectively. ___(4)___.
Sentence: When people socially learn from each other, they often learn without understanding why what they're copying-the beliefs and behaviours and technologies and know-how-works.
Paragraph: ___(1)___. The dual-inheritance theory ....says....that inheritance is itself an evolutionary system. It has variation. What makes us a new kind of animal, and so different and successful as a species, is we rely heavily on social learning, to the point where socially acquired information is effectively a second line of inheritance, the first being our genes.... ___(2)___. People tend to home in on who seems to be the smartest or most successful person around, as well as what everybody seems to be doing-the majority of people have something worth learning. ___(3)___. When you repeat this process over time, you can get, around the world, cultural packages-beliefs or behaviours or technology or other solutions-that are adapted to the local conditions. People have different psychologies, effectively. ___(4)___.
- AOption 1
- BOption 2
- COption 3
- DOption 4
Answer: (B) Option 2 Sentence Placement MCQ
Solution
- Before blank 2 the paragraph introduces social learning as a 'second line of inheritance', alongside genes.
- The sentence then describes how that learning works: people copy beliefs and know-how without knowing why they work. This sets up the next line, on whom people choose to copy (the most successful, or the majority).
- 'When you repeat this process over time' then follows naturally from the copying heuristics. So the sentence belongs at (2), not (3), where it would break the link between choosing models and repeating the process.