CAT 2024 Slot 3 · VARC · Question 19
CAT 2024 Slot 3 previous year question on Sentence Completion and Insertion, with the answer and a step-by-step solution.
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: Many have had to leave their homes behind, with more than 1.3 million people being displaced due to the drought.
Passage: 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 8 million 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.
- AOption 4
- BOption 2
- COption 3
- DOption 1
Answer & solution
Answer: Option A
The last sentence says 'Some, like the pastoralists, may never be able to go back'. 'Go back' needs something to go back to – a home they have left. Nothing before blank 4 mentions people leaving. The missing sentence supplies it: 'Many have had to leave their homes behind... more than 1.3 million people being displaced.' 'Some' in the last sentence then refers to the 'many' who were displaced.
The order also makes sense: lost income and livestock leave communities on the brink of famine, so they are forced to leave home, and some may never return.
Blanks 1 and 2 come while the paragraph is still giving the drought's scale and food insecurity; displacement would jump ahead.
Blank 3 would separate 'The damage the drought has caused is far-reaching' from the examples of that damage that follow.
Shortcut: look for a closing sentence that depends on an idea never stated – here 'go back'. The missing sentence usually goes right before it.
The answer is 'Option 4', which is listed first. Hence, the answer is option 1.
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