CAT Verbal Ability > Sentence Placement PYQs

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) ____.

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: In each of the affected males, the genetic defect was located to the X chromosome in the region of p11-12. Paragraph: The first suggested evidence of a human genetic mutation associated with aggressive behaviour came from a study in 1993. _____(1)____. Genetic and metabolic studies were conducted on a large Dutch family in which several of the males has a syndrome of borderline mental retardation and abnormal behaviour. _____(2)____. The undesirable behaviour included impulsive aggression, arson and exhibitionism. _____(3)____. A point mutation was identified in the eighth exon of the monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) structural gene which changes glutamine to a termination codon. _____(4)____.

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- The region's Western customers found it hard to believe that Dhaka muslin could possibly have been made by human hands - there were rumour that it was woven by mermaids, fairies and even ghosts. Once upon the silty banks of the Meghna River, a miracle was spun - a fabric so light it was called "baft-hawa", or woven air. This was Dhaka Muslin - the world's most coveted cloth. ____(1)____. Handspun from a rare cotton called Phuti Karpas, found nowhere else on Earth, and woven with a 16-step sacred ritual - beginning with cleaning the cotton using the teeth of a river catfish! ____(2)____. Every spring, the maple-like leaves pushed up through the grey, silty soil to produce a single daffodil-yellow flower twice a year, which gave way to a snowy floret of cotton fibres. ____(3)____. Spun at dawn on boats by sharp-eyed young women, its threads were so fine the elderly could barely see them. Motifs of wildflowers, river breeze, and soul were etched into each piece - some so light, a 91-metre bolt could pass through a ring, or a 60' length fit inside a snuffbox. It draped Greek goddesses, Roman nobles, Mughal emperors, and European aristocrats. Marie Antoinette, Empress Josephine - even Jane Austen adored its floating grace. ____(4)____.

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: While taste is related to judgment, with thinkers at the time often writing, for example, about "judgments of taste" or using the two terms interchangeably, taste retains a vital link to pleasure, embodiment, and personal specificity that is too often elided in post-Kantian ideas about judgment-a link that Arendt herself was working to restore. Paragraph: ____(1) ____. Denneny focused on taste rather than judgment in order to highlight what he believed was a crucial but neglected historical change. ____(2) ____. Over the course of the seventeenth century and early eighteenth century, across Western Europe, the word taste took on a new extension of meaning, no longer referring specifically to gustatory sensation and the delights of the palate but becoming, for a time, one of the central categories for aesthetic-and ethical-thinking. ____(3) ____. Tracing the history of taste in Spanish, French, and British aesthetic theory, as Denneny did, also provides a means to recover the compelling and relevant writing of a set of thinkers who have been largely neglected by professional philosophy. ____(4) ____.

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: "Everything is old-world, traditional techniques from Mexico," Ava emphasizes. Paragraph: The sisters embrace the ways their great-grandfather built and repaired instruments. ____(1) ____. When crafting a Mexican guitarrón used in mariachi music, they use tacote wood for the top of the instrument. Once the wood is cut, they carve the neck and heel from a single block using tools like hand saws, chisels and sandpaper rather than modern power tools — and believe that this traditional method improves the tone of the instrument. ____(2) ____. Their store has a three-year waitlist for instruments that take months to create. ____(3) ____. The family's artisanship has attracted stars like Los Lobos, who own custom guitars made by all three generations of the Delgado family. ____(4) ____. For the sisters, involvement in the family business started at an early age. They each built their first instruments at age 9.

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: Historically, silver has been, and still is, an important element in the business of 'show' visible in private houses, churches, government and diplomacy. Paragraph: ____(1) ____. Timothy Schroder put it succinctly in suggesting that electric light and eating in the kitchen eroded this need. As he explained to the author, 'Silver, when illuminated by flickering candlelight, comes alive and almost dances before the eyes, but when lit by electric light it becomes flat and dead.' ____(2) ____. Domestic and economic changes may have worked against the market, but the London silver trade remained buoyant, thanks to the competition of collectors seeking grand display silver at the top end, and the buyers of 'collectables', like spoons and wine labels and 'novelties', at the bottom. ____(3) ____. Another factor that came into play was the systematic collection building of certain American museums over the period. Boston, Huntington Art Gallery and Williamsburg, among others, were largely supplied by London dealers. ____(4) ____.

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 horrifying photograph of children fleeing a deadly napalm attack has become a defining image not only of the Vietnam War but the 20th century. ___ (1) ___. Dark smoke billowing behind them, the young subjects' faces are painted with a mixture of terror, pain and confusion. ___ (2) ___. Soldiers from the South Vietnamese army's 25th Division follow helplessly behind. ___ (3) ___. The picture was officially titled "The Terror of War," but the photo is better known by the nickname given to naked 9-year-old at its centre "Napalm Girl". ___ (4) ___. Sentence: Taken outside the village of Trang Bang on June 8, 1972, the picture captured the trauma and indiscriminate violence of a conflict that claimed, by some estimates, a million or more civilian lives.

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) ___ Prices are rising at their fastest rate in 40 years, consequently, return-to-office-related costs have shot up - think petrol and food, for instance. ___ (2) ___ . Yet wages haven't kept up with inflation even despite the salary growth many workers have enjoyed during a favorable pandemic labour market. ___ (3) ___ . This is especially jarring for workers who were able to save during remote work, when these expenditures weren't a factor. ___ (4) ___ . In April 2022, Umus, a London university lecturer, told BBC Work life that they were spending nearly a quarter of what they made every day on return-to-work costs. Sentence: This reality is putting stress on employees who have to pay for transport, desk lunches, more childcare, clothing and that after-work socialisation - costs they haven't incurred for nearly two years.

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: Somalia has been dealing with an enormous humanitarian catastrophe, driven by the longest and most severe drought the country has experienced in at least 40 years. ___ (1) ___ . Five consecutive rainy seasons have failed, causing more than 8million people - almost half of the country's population to experience acute food insecurity. ___ (2) ___ . More than 43,000 people are believed to have lost their lives, with half of the lives lost likely being children under five. The damage the drought has caused is far-reaching. ___ (3) ___ . Farmers have lost all their agricultural income, while pastoralists have lost more than 3 million livestock, impoverishing entire communities, and leaving them on the brink of famine. ___ (4) ___ . Some, like the pastoralists, may never be able to go back as their livelihoods have been irreversibly wiped out. Sentence: Many have had to leave their homes behind, with more than 1.3 million people being displaced due to the drought.

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: Early in this century a young Breton schoolboy who preparing himself for a scientific career began to notice a strange fact about hens in his father's poultry yard ___ (1) ___ . As they scratched the soil they constantly seemed to be pecking at specks of mica, a siliceous material dotting the ground ___ (2) ___ . No one could explain to Louis Kervran why the chickens selected the mica, or why each time a bird was killed for the family cooking pot no trace of the mica could be found in its gizzard ___ (3) ___ . It took Kervran many years to establish that the chickens were transmuting one element into another ___ (4) ___ . Sentence: Yet each day the flock produced eggs with calcareous shells though they apparently had not ingested any calcium from land which was entirely lacking in limestone.

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: My fellow night owls, grab a strong cup of coffee and gather around: I have great news ___ (1) ___ . For a long time, our kind has been unfairly maligned. Stereotyped as lazy and undisciplined. Told we ought to be morning larks. Advised to go to bed early so we can wake before 5am and run a marathon before breakfast like all high-flyers seem to do. Now, however, we are having the last laugh ___ (2) ___ .It may be a tad more complicated than that. A study published last week, which you may have already seen while scrolling at lam, suggests that staying up late could be good for brain power ___ (3) ___ .Is this study a thinly veiled PR exercise conducted by a caffeine-pill company? Nope, it's legit ___ (4) ___ . Research led by academics at Imperial College London studied data on more than 26,000 people and found that “self-declared 'night owls' generally tend to have higher cognitive scores". Sentence: Science has officially crowned us superior to our early-rising brethren.

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: A volume of translated Italian madrigals were published in London during the year of 1588. This sudden public interest facilitated a surge of English Madrigal writing as well as a spurt of other secular music writing and publication ___ (1) ___ . This music boom lasted for thirty years and was as much a golden age of music as British literature was with Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth ___ (2) ___ . The rebirth in both literature and music originated in Italy and migrated to England; the English madrigal became more humorous and lighter in England as compared to Italy. Renaissance music was mostly polyphonic in texture ___ (3) ___ . Extreme use of and contrasts in dynamics, rhythm, and tone colour do not occur ___ (4) ___ . The rhythms in Renaissance music tend to have a smooth, soft flow instead of a sharp, well-defined pulse of accents. Sentence: Comprehending a wide range of emotions, Renaissance music nevertheless portrayed all emotions in a balanced and moderate fashion.

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) ___ You can't just put things anywhere you want to. The evolved architecture of the brain is haphazard and disjointed, and incorporates multiple systems, each of which has a mind of its own ___ (2) ___ . Evolution doesn't design things and it doesn't build systems, it settles on systems that, historically, conveyed a survival benefit. There is no overarching, grand planner engineering the systems so that they work harmoniously together ___ (3) ___ . The brain is more like a big, old house with piecemeal renovations done on every floor, and less like new construction ___ (4) ___ . Sentence: The brain isn't organized the way you might set up your home office or bathroom medicine cabinet.

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 nations of the Silk Roads are sometimes called 'developing countries', but they are actually some of the world's most highly developed countries, the very crossroads of civilization, in advanced states of disrepair ___ (1) ___ . These countries lie at the centre of global affairs: they have since the beginning of history. Running across the spine of Asia, they form a web of connections fanning out in every direction, routes along which pilgrims and warriors, nomads and merchants have travelled, goods and produce have been bought and sold, and ideas exchanged, adapted and refined ___ (2) ___ . They have carried not only prosperity, but also death and violence, disease and disaster ___ (3) ___ . The Silk Roads are the world's central nervous system, connecting otherwise far-flung peoples and places ___ (4) ___ . It allows us to see patterns and links, causes and effects that remain invisible if one looks only at Europe, or North America. Sentence: Understanding central Asia's role helps developments make more sense not only across Asia but in Europe, the Americas and Africa.

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) ___ An argument can be defined as a complex symbolic structure where some parts, known as the premises, offer support to another part, the conclusion. Alternatively, an argument can be viewed as a complex speech act consisting of one or more acts of premising (which assert propositions in favor of the conclusion), an act of concluding, and a stated or implicit marker ("hence", "therefore) that indicates that the conclusion follows from the premises ___ (2) ___ . The relation of support between premises and conclusion can be cashed out in different ways: the premises may guarantee the truth of the conclusion, or make Its truth more probable; the premises may imply the conclusion; the premises may make the conclusion more acceptable (or assertible) ___ (3) ___ . But depending on one's explanatory goals, there is also much to be gained from considering arguments as they in fact occur in human communicative practices ___ (4) ___ . Sentence: For theoretical purposes, arguments may be considered as freestanding entities, abstracted from their contexts of use in actual human activities.

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: ___ (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.<br><br>

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: The experience of reading philosophy is often disquieting. When reading philosophy, the values around which one has heretofore organised one's life may come to look provincial, flatly wrong, or even evil ___ (1) ___ . When beliefs previously held as truths are rendered implausible, new beliefs, values, and ways of living may be required ___ (2) ___ . What's worse, philosophers admonish each other to remain unsutured until such time as a defensible new answer is revealed or constructed. Sometimes philosophical writing is even strictly critical in that it does not even attempt to provide an alternative after tearing down a cultural or conceptual citadel ___ (3) ___ . The reader of philosophy must be prepared for the possibility of this experience. While reading philosophy can help one clarify one's values, and even make one self-conscious for the first time of the fact that there are good reasons for believing what one believes, it can also generate unremediated doubt that is difficult to live with ___ (4) ___ . Sentence: This philosophical cut at one's core beliefs, values, and way of life is difficult enough.

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 researchers also uncovered an unexpected genetic link between Native Americans and Japanese people ___ (1) ___ . During the deglaciation period, another group branched out from northern coastal China and travelled to Japan ___ (2) ___ . "We were surprised to find that this ancestral source also contributed to the Japanese gene pool, especially the indigenous Ainus," says Li ___ (3) ___ . They shared similarities in how they crafted stemmed projectile points for arrowheads and spears ___ (4) ___ . "This suggests that the Pleistocene connection among the Americas, China, and Japan was not confined to culture but also to genetics," says senior author Qing-Peng Kong, an evolutionary geneticist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Sentence: The discovery helps to explain archeological similarities between the Paleolithic peoples of China, Japan, and the Americas.

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) ___ . 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: <p>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.

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: Aage Badhein's USP lies in the ethnographic research that constituted the foundation of its development process. Customizations based on learning directly from potential users were critical to making this self-paced app suitable for both a literate and non-literate audience ___ (1) ___ . The user interface caters to a Hindi- speaking audience who have minimal to no experience with digital services and devices ___ (2) ___ . The content and functionality of the app are suitable for a wide audience. This includes youth preparing for an independent role in life or a student ready to create a strong foundation of financial management early in her life ___ (3) ___ . Household members desirous of improving their family's financial strength to reach their aspirations can also benefit. We piloted Aage Badhein in early 2021 with over 400 women from rural areas ___ (4) ___ . The digital solution generated a large amount of interest in the communities. Sentence: Most were first-time users of a tablet and a digital app.

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: For millennia, ghee has been a venerated staple of the subcontinental diet, but it fell out of favour a few decades ago when saturated fats were largely considered to be unhealthy ___ (1) ___ . But more recently, as the thinking around saturated fats is shifting globally, Indians are finding their own way back to this ingredient that is so integral to their cuisine ___ (2) ___ . For Karmakar, a renewed interest in ghee is emblematic of a return-to-basics movement in India ___ (3) ___ This movement is also part of an overall trend towards "slow food". In keeping with the movement's philosophy, ghee can be produced locally (even at home) and has inextricable cultural ties ___ (4) ___ At a basic level, ghee is a type of clarified butter believed to have originated in India as a way to preserve butter from going rancid in the hot climate. Sentence: This was years in the making but fast-tracked during the pandemic, when "people started being more mindful about their food", he explained.

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.

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: Wedding season is upon us and – after two years of Covid chaos that saw nuptials scaled back- you may think the temptation would be to go all out ___ (1) ___ . But instead of expanding the guest list, many couples are opting to have entirely secret ceremonies. With Covid case numbers remaining high and the cost-of-living crisis meaning that many couples are feeling the pinch, it's no wonder that some are less than eager to send out invites ___ (2) ___ . Plus, it can't hurt that in celebrity circles getting married in secret is all the rage ___ (3) ___ . "I would definitely say that secret weddings are becoming more common," says Landis Bejar, the founder of a therapy practice, which specialises in helping brides and grooms manage wedding stress. "People are looking for ways to get out of the spotlight and avoid the pomp and circumstance of weddings ___ (4) ___ . They just want to get to the part where they are married." Sentence: Easing the anxiety and pressure of having a "big day" is part of the appeal for many couples who marry in secret.