IPMAT Indore 2023 · Verbal Ability · Question 16

Step 1 — the blank is the opening sentence, so it must introduce the paragraph’s subject and set up what follows.

Step 2 — see what the paragraph actually does. Every remaining sentence is about international conflict over shared water: conflicts brewing over shared rivers, two hundred shared water bodies, strife across the Middle East. The paragraph is not about scarcity in general — it is about scarcity producing tension between countries.

Step 3 — test option (b).

“With water becoming increasingly scarce and development of new sources of water extremely costly, international water tensions are expected to rise”

This names both halves: the cause (scarcity, costly alternatives) and the effect (international tensions). The next sentence then illustrates it, and “This is not unexpected” refers straight back to the expectation this option sets up.

Step 4 — eliminate.

(a) Supplies the scarcity but stops there. It never reaches conflict between countries, so sentence 2 arrives unprepared and “This is not unexpected” has no expectation to point at.

(c) Claims the world ignores water scarcity — the paragraph then shows countries fighting over it, which is the opposite of ignoring it.

(d) A rhetorical flourish about water as “the new oil”. It names no mechanism and leads nowhere; the following sentences are factual and specific.

Answer: Option 2

Shortcut. “This is not unexpected” in sentence 3 is the anchor. Something must already have been expected — and only option (b) contains an expectation (“tensions are expected to rise”).

That one link does the whole question.

Two further tests for an opening-sentence blank:

It must introduce the theme the rest develops — here international conflict, not scarcity alone, which is why (a) falls short despite being true.

It should not be a mere aphorism; openers that gesture rather than state, like (d), leave the following sentences without a foothold.