CAT 2023 Slot 1 · VARC · Question 15

CAT 2023 Slot 1 previous year question on Sentence Completion and Insertion, with the answer and a step-by-step solution.

Sentence Completion and InsertionVerbal AbilityMultiple choiceMedium

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: The discovery helps to explain archeological similarities between the Paleolithic peoples of China, Japan, and the Americas.

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.

  1. A

    Option 2

  2. B

    Option 3

  3. C

    Option 1

  4. D

    Option 4

Pick an option, then check.
Answer & solution

Answer: Option B

The missing sentence says 'The discovery' explains archaeological similarities between Paleolithic peoples of China, Japan and the Americas. The sentence after blank 3 begins 'They shared similarities in how they crafted stemmed projectile points' – 'They' needs to refer to those peoples, and 'similarities' picks up 'archeological similarities'.

Before blank 3, the discovery has been fully described: the ancestral source also contributed to the Japanese gene pool.

Blank 1 is too early: the genetic link to Japan has not yet been explained.

Blank 2 comes before Li's quotation about the Japanese gene pool, so 'The discovery' would not yet be complete.

Blank 4 comes after the projectile points, leaving 'They' at blank 3 without a referent.

Shortcut: a sentence after a blank that begins with 'They' plus a repeated keyword ('similarities') usually needs the missing sentence directly before it.

The answer is 'Option 3', which is listed second. Hence, the answer is option 2.

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