IPMAT Indore 2022 · Verbal Ability · Question 17

Blank 1 — which discipline poses thought-provoking questions about life? The sentence names “different thinkers” later, which points directly to philosophy.

orthography (b) is the study of spelling — it poses no questions about life.

linguistics (c) studies language scientifically; it does not inspire reflection on “life in general”.

history (d) is plausible in isolation, but its blank 2 partner is “animals”, which makes no sense.

Blank 2 — think deeply about ___ and life in general. The phrase “and life in general” signals that the first item is narrower and personal, so ourselves fits exactly. “Think deeply about animals and life in general” (d) is incoherent.

Blank 3 — the activity. “___ about the ideas and perspectives” needs a verb of reflection that takes about:

pondering about ✔ (and pondering over) — reflecting at length.

speaking about (b) is grammatical but wrong in sense: the sentence is about private reflection leading to understanding, not conversation.

cogitating (c) and mulling (d) both mean to think over, but mull takes over, not about, and cogitate is unnaturally formal here.

Blank 4 — the outcome. “A better ___ of the world we live in” wants understanding — the standard collocation and the natural end point of reflection. Acquaintance with the world (d) would need a different preposition, and picture (c) is weaker.

Consistent throughout: philosophy; ourselves; pondering; understanding.

Answer: Option 1

Shortcut. Blank 1 alone settles it if you read ahead to “different thinkers”. That phrase belongs to philosophy, not to spelling, linguistics or history.

Then use blank 2 as the confirmation, because it is the most absurd of the distractors: “think deeply about animals and life in general” is self-evidently wrong, which removes (d) without any vocabulary knowledge.

Vocabulary worth taking from this question: orthography (spelling), cogitate (to think deeply), mull over (to turn over in the mind — note the preposition), ponder over/about.