IPMAT Indore 2022 · Verbal Ability · RC passage 1: Passage 1 – Why some fruits keep ripening after picking

Where the passage says it. Paragraph 2 states the governing idea:

“Fruits, they observe, exist to solve a problem faced by all plants — how best to spread their progeny around.”

So fruit-bearing plants face the same propagation problem as every other plant; fruit is simply their particular solution to it. That is option (d).

Why the others fail:

(a) True as a recommendation, but it is the passage’s closing suggestion for future work (“The next step… should be the analysis of wild fruits”), not its main point. A final recommendation is not the thesis.

(b) Over-negative. The passage reports a study that did produce “a suggestively strong correlation”; it notes a limitation, it does not declare the subject unstudiable.

(c) Unsupported. Nothing claims fruit-bearing plants are better protected or propagate more easily — only that they recruit animals to do the distributing.

Answer: Option 4

Shortcut. Look for the sentence containing a universal quantifier. “A problem faced by all plants” is the writer framing fruit within a general botanical challenge — and only option (d) echoes that universality.

Option (a) is the designed trap, because it restates the passage’s genuine final sentence. A recommendation for further research is almost never the main point; it is what the passage arrives at after making its point. Ask instead what the passage spends its middle paragraphs establishing.

Where the passage says it. The final paragraph states the study’s limitation outright:

“The main limitation of their work is that they looked at fruits eaten by people.”

Why the others fail:

(b) The University of Tokyo is where the two biologists work, not where the fruit came from. The passage never describes a local collection.

(c) The exact opposite. Wild fruits are what the passage says should be studied next — “The next step, therefore, should be the analysis of wild fruits.” They were not the basis of this study.

(d) Greengrocers appear in paragraph 1 only to explain why climacterism matters commercially. They are not the source of the sample.

Answer: Option 1

Shortcut. Options (a) and (c) are a direct opposition pair — fruits eaten by people versus wild fruits — and in a detail question one of a contradictory pair is usually the answer. Locate the single sentence that settles it: “looked at fruits eaten by people.”

The trap in (c) is tense. Wild fruits belong to the passage’s future (“the next step should be”), not its method. Whenever an option paraphrases a recommendation, check whether the passage puts it in the past or the future.

Both words can be worked out from the passage itself, without a dictionary.

“Arboreal”. Paragraph 2 contrasts two kinds of distributor:

“If ground-dwelling animals are the main distributors… If, by contrast, those distributors are arboreal or aerial, and so can feed on unfallen fruit…”

The contrast with ground-dwelling, plus the ability to reach fruit still on the plant, gives tree-dwelling. (The Latin root arbor = tree.)

“Camouflage”. Paragraph 4:

“non-climacteric fruits tend to have vivid colours… This may help them to stand out amid the foliage… Climacteric fruits are generally better camouflaged. That makes them harder to spot.”

Camouflaged is the opposite of standing out — i.e. disguised.

Why the others fail:

(b) “Ground-dwelling” is precisely what arboreal contrasts with — a reversal.

(c) “Protected and fortified” imports a defensive idea the passage never raises; camouflage here is about visibility, not protection.

(d) “Covered” is close but weaker than disguised, and variegated means multi-coloured — the opposite of blending in.

Answer: Option 1

Shortcut. Vocabulary-in-context questions are answered from the contrast, not from memory. The passage sets arboreal directly against ground-dwelling, so option (b) — which offers “ground-dwelling” as the meaning — is a guaranteed reversal and can go first.

Then camouflaged is explained in the very next sentence: “harder to spot”. Match that to disguised.

Note that (d) contains a self-contradiction: variegated means showing several colours, which is what the passage attributes to the non-camouflaged fruits. An option whose two halves pull in opposite directions is rarely correct.

Step 1 — find the statement about origins. Paragraph 1 closes:

“But how those differences originally came about remains unclear.”

Nebulous means vague or unclear — a direct match.

Step 2 — check that the research does not settle it. The study produces only “a suggestively strong correlation”, the hypothesis is “fortified by other evidence” rather than proved, and the final paragraph concedes the sample is “probably contaminated”. The passage is careful never to claim the question is closed.

Why the others fail:

(b) “Clear now” overstates every hedge in the passage. A correlation on a contaminated sample is not a settled origin.

(c) “Trivial” contradicts paragraph 1, which says the difference “matters to fruit growers and greengrocers.”

(d) Shifts the issue to researcher subjectivity, which the passage never raises. Its stated limitation is the sample, not the observers.

Answer: Option 1

Shortcut. The phrase “remains unclear” sits in the first paragraph and is never retracted. Scan for a synonym among the options — nebulous — and you are done.

Weigh the hedges before choosing (b). The passage uses propose, suggestively, may help, probably contaminated — a chain of qualifications. A passage that hedges this heavily never supports an option containing “clear now”.

And note the concession in the stem: “in spite of research” tells you the answer must acknowledge that research happened and that the matter is still open — which only (a) does.

Where the passage says it. Paragraph 1 names exactly who cares and why:

“The difference… matters to fruit growers and greengrocers, who must make sure their wares are in tip-top condition when they arrive at the marketplace.”

Growers, greengrocers, wares, marketplace — four commercial markers in a single sentence.

Why the others fail:

(b) Environmental — the passage discusses seed dispersal as biology, not as an environmental concern, and no ecological stake is raised.

(c) Gastronomical — the “tasty meal” in paragraph 2 is bait for animals, part of the dispersal mechanism, not a comment on human cuisine.

(d) Public health — nothing in the passage touches health at all.

Answer: Option 1

Shortcut. Ask who the passage says is interested, not what the passage is about. The question is about the interest, and paragraph 1 answers it directly: growers and greengrocers getting goods to market.

That vocabulary — wares, marketplace — is unambiguously commercial, so option (a) is secure without weighing the others.

Option (c) is the near-miss worth noticing: the passage really does mention a “tasty meal”, but for animals and as part of the plant’s strategy. Check whose experience a detail describes before letting it drive your answer.

Step 1 — identify each Finding in the passage.

Finding (ii) is the study itself, in paragraph 3:

“15 of the 19 varieties eaten principally by ground-dwellers were climacteric, while 21 of the 26 fed on by arboreal or aerial animals were non-climacteric.”

Note 15+21=36 — exactly the “thirty-six varieties” the Finding describes. This is the test the researchers designed, and paragraph 4 opens by calling it “a suggestively strong correlation.”

Finding (i) is the colour observation, in paragraph 4:

“And the authors’ hypothesis is fortified by other evidence. They point out that non-climacteric fruits tend to have vivid colours…”

Step 2 — read the passage’s own labelling. The phrase “fortified by other evidence” explicitly marks the colour point as additional support — i.e. supplementary — arriving after the main correlation has been reported.

So Finding (ii) is the main evidence and Finding (i) is supplementary.

Answer: Option 4

Shortcut. One phrase in paragraph 4 decides the whole question: “fortified by other evidence”. Whatever follows that phrase is supplementary by the passage’s own account — and what follows is the colour observation, Finding (i).

So (i) is supplementary, (ii) is main — option (d).

Two structural cues confirm it without any reading of content:

The designed study comes first and is called “suggestively strong”; the colour point comes second and is introduced as reinforcement.

The number 36 in Finding (ii) matches 15+21 from paragraph 3, tying it to the study proper.

All four options use the same two labels in different pairings, so the task is purely to rank the two pieces of evidence — do that from the connectives, not from the biology.