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: Research has hypothesised that the earliest evidence of human lip kissing originated in a very specific geographical location in South Asia 3,500 years ago ___ (1) ___ . From there it may have spread to other regions, simultaneously accelerating the spread of the herpes simplex virus 1. According to Dr Troels Pank Arbøll and Dr Sophie Lund Rasmussen, who in a new article in the journal Science draw on a range of written sources from the earliest Mesopotamian societies, kissing was already a well-established practice 4,500 years ago in the Middle East ___ (2) ___ . In ancient Mesopotamia, people wrote in cuneiform script on clay tablets ___ (3) ___ . Many thousands of these clay tablets have survived to this day, and they contain clear examples that kissing was considered a part of romantic intimacy in ancient times ___ (4) ___ . "Kissing could also have been part of friendships and family members' relations," says Dr Troels Pank Arbøll, an expert on the history of medicine in Mesopotamia.

Sentence: And probably much earlier, moving the documentation for kissing back 1,000 years compared to what was acknowledged in the scientific community.

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: Bringing workers back to their desks has been a rocky road for employers and employees alike. The evolution of the pandemic has meant that best laid plans have often not materialised. ___ (1) ___ . The flow of workers back into offices has been more of a trickle than a steady stream. ___ (2) ___ Yet while plenty of companies are still working through their new policies, some employees across the globe are now back at their desks, whether on a full-time or hybrid basis. ___ (3) ___ . That means we're beginning to get some clarity on what return-to-office means what's working, as well as what has yet to be settled. ___ (4) ___ .

Sentence: This has meant a lot of uncertainty around what a wide-scale return to office might look like in practice.

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) ___ At the core of development economics lies the idea of 'productive dualism': that poor countries' economies are split between a narrow 'modern' sector that uses advanced technologies and a larger 'traditional' sector characterized by very low productivity ___ (2) ___ . While this distinction between developing and advanced economies may have made some sense in the 1950s and 1960s, it no longer appears to be very relevant. A combination of forces have produced a widening gap between the winners and those left behind ___ (3) ___ . Convergence between poor and rich parts of the economy was arrested and regional disparities widened ___ (4) ___ . As a result, policymakers in advanced economies are now grappling with the same questions that have long pre-occupied developing economies: mainly how to close the gap with the more advanced parts of the economy.

Sentence: Dualism was long held as the defining feature of developing countries in contrast to developed countries, where frontier technologies and high productivity were assumed to prevail.