CAT (VARC) PYQs

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.

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: The Europeans did not invent globalization.

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.

Paragraph: ___ (1) ___ .Linkages between illicit arms, organized crime, and armed conflict can reinforce one another while also escalating and prolonging violence and eroding governance ___ (2) ___ . Financial gains from crime can lengthen or intensify armed conflicts by creating revenue streams for non-State armed groups (NSAGs) ___ (3) ___ . In this context, when hostilities cease and parties to a conflict move towards a peaceful resolution, the widespread availability of surplus arms and ammunition can contribute to a situation of 'criminalized peace' that obstructs sustainable peace building efforts ___ (4) ___ .

Sentence: Beyond undermining the monopoly of the State on the use of force, armed conflict also creates an environment that can enable organized crime to prosper.

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.

Paragraph: Never before has a population, nearly all of whom has enjoyed at a least a secondary school education, been exposed to so much information, whether in newspapers and magazines or through YouTube, Google, and Facebook ___ (1) ___ . Yet it is not clear that people today are more knowledgeable than their barely literate predecessors. Contemporary advances in technology offered more serious and inquisitive students access to realms of knowledge previously unimaginable and unavailable ___ (2) ___ . But such readily available knowledge leads many more students away from serious study, the reading of actual texts, and toward an inability to write effectively and grammatically ___ (3) ___ . It has let people choose sources that reinforce their opinions rather than encouraging them to question inherited beliefs ___ (4) ___ .

Sentence: Having made citizens more and less knowledgeable than their predecessors, the Internet has proved to be both a blessing and a curse.