NinetynineCAT 2025 Slot 3 VARC Q15 Sentence Placement
Question 15 of the Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension (VARC) section, CAT 2025 Slot 3, with CAT's official answer and a worked solution.
The given sentence is missing in the paragraph below. Decide where it best fits among the options 1, 2, 3, or 4 indicated in the paragraph.
Sentence: Productivity gains, once expected to feed through to broader living standards, now primarily serve to enhance returns to wealth.
Paragraph: Economists now argue that inequality is no longer a by-product of growth but a condition of it. ____ (1) ____. Unlike wages, wealth reflects not just income but also access to assets, favourable institutional conditions – such as low interest rates – and public policies like low taxes and housing shortages. ____ (2) ____. In other words, wealth depends on political choices in ways that income currently does not. It's not just the inequality itself that is the issue but the erosion of mechanisms that once constrained it. ____ (3) ____. Wealth and income inequality are linked, but where wages have stagnated and collective bargaining has weakened, capital income – derived from profits, rents and interest – has been boosted by design. ____ (4) ____.
Sentence: Productivity gains, once expected to feed through to broader living standards, now primarily serve to enhance returns to wealth.
Paragraph: Economists now argue that inequality is no longer a by-product of growth but a condition of it. ____ (1) ____. Unlike wages, wealth reflects not just income but also access to assets, favourable institutional conditions – such as low interest rates – and public policies like low taxes and housing shortages. ____ (2) ____. In other words, wealth depends on political choices in ways that income currently does not. It's not just the inequality itself that is the issue but the erosion of mechanisms that once constrained it. ____ (3) ____. Wealth and income inequality are linked, but where wages have stagnated and collective bargaining has weakened, capital income – derived from profits, rents and interest – has been boosted by design. ____ (4) ____.
- AOption 3
- BOption 1
- COption 4
- DOption 2
Answer: (C) Option 4 Sentence Placement MCQ
Solution
- The sentence contrasts two destinations for productivity gains: broader living standards (wages) and returns to wealth (capital income).
- The last sentence sets up exactly that contrast: wages have stagnated while capital income from profits, rents and interest 'has been boosted by design'.
- The missing sentence states the result of that shift, so it belongs at blank 4 and closes the paragraph.
- At blank 1 it would come too early: the paragraph has not yet set wages against capital income, and 'Unlike wages, wealth reflects...' follows the opening claim well on its own.