CAT 2024 Slot 2 · VARC · Question 7

CAT 2024 Slot 2 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: Science has officially crowned us superior to our early-rising brethren.

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 1am, 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".

  1. A
    Option 2
  2. B
    Option 4
  3. C
    Option 3
  4. D
    Option 1
Pick an option, then check.
Answer & solution

Answer: Option A

The sentence after blank 2 is 'It may be a tad more complicated than that.' 'That' needs a bold claim to qualify. The missing sentence is that claim: 'Science has officially crowned us superior to our early-rising brethren.' The author makes the triumphant claim, then softens it.

It also follows naturally from 'Now, however, we are having the last laugh' – the last laugh is that science has crowned night owls superior.

Blank 1 is too early: the author has not yet described how night owls were maligned, so a claim of victory has nothing to answer.

Blank 3 would come after the study has been described more cautiously ('could be good for brain power'); the overstatement would be out of place there.

Blank 4 comes just before the specific research details; the paragraph has already moved past the playful claim.

Shortcut: when the sentence after a blank qualifies something ('more complicated than that'), the missing sentence is usually the overstatement being qualified.

The answer is 'Option 2', which is listed first. Hence, the answer is option 1.

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