NinetynineCAT 2024 Slot 2 VARC Q23 Sentence Placement
Question 23 of the Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VARC) section, CAT 2024 Slot 2, 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 where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: [T]he Europeans did not invent globalization.
Paragraph: The first phase of globalization occurred long before the introduction of either steam or electric power…Chinese consumers at all social levels consumed vast quantities of spices, fragrant woods and unusual plants. The peoples of Southeast Asia who lived in forests gave up their traditional livelihoods and completely reoriented their economies to supply Chinese consumers….___(1)___. These exchanges of the year 1000 opened some of the routes through which goods and peoples continued to travel after Columbus traversed the mid-Atlantic. ___(2)___. Yet the world of 1000 differed from that of 1492 in important ways….the travellers who encountered one another in the year 1000 were much closer technologically. ___(3)___. They changed and augmented what was already there since 1000. ___(4)___. If globalization hadn't yet begun, Europeans wouldn't have been able to penetrate the markets in so many places as quickly as they did after 1492.
Sentence: [T]he Europeans did not invent globalization.
Paragraph: The first phase of globalization occurred long before the introduction of either steam or electric power…Chinese consumers at all social levels consumed vast quantities of spices, fragrant woods and unusual plants. The peoples of Southeast Asia who lived in forests gave up their traditional livelihoods and completely reoriented their economies to supply Chinese consumers….___(1)___. These exchanges of the year 1000 opened some of the routes through which goods and peoples continued to travel after Columbus traversed the mid-Atlantic. ___(2)___. Yet the world of 1000 differed from that of 1492 in important ways….the travellers who encountered one another in the year 1000 were much closer technologically. ___(3)___. They changed and augmented what was already there since 1000. ___(4)___. If globalization hadn't yet begun, Europeans wouldn't have been able to penetrate the markets in so many places as quickly as they did after 1492.
- AOption 2
- BOption 1
- COption 4
- DOption 3
Answer: (D) Option 3 Sentence Placement MCQ
Solution
- The sentence needs a link to Europeans and to the idea that globalization already existed.
- Blank 3 sits right before 'They changed and augmented what was already there since 1000'. 'They' needs an antecedent, which is 'the Europeans' in the sentence.
- The sentence also follows the contrast that travellers in 1000 were technologically closer, and leads into the last line that Europeans could not have entered markets so fast if globalization had not begun. Answer: Option 3.
Shortcut. Find a pronoun ('They') with no antecedent; the missing sentence supplies it.