IPMAT Indore 2023 · Verbal Ability · Question 17

Blank 2 is the tightest — start there. Working from home puts something on a thing. Which noun takes on in a fixed phrase about being seen?

on screen ✔ — the standard phrase, and literally true of video calls from home.

on video — possible English, but the idiom “put your life on video” means to record it, not to expose it to colleagues.

on camera — likewise about recording.

on microscope ✘ — not English; the phrase is under a microscope.

Option (d) fails on a preposition alone.

Blank 3 — the reaction. The final clause explains the feeling: “as they like to keep their work and home lives separate.” The feeling is therefore about a boundary being crossed.

disconcerting ✔ — unsettling, throwing one off balance. Exactly the response to a blurred boundary.

uncomfortable and disturbing are plausible but blunter; complicated describes a situation, not a feeling.

Blank 1 — which life? The contrast named at the end is work versus home, so the blank is the non-work side.

private ✔ — the precise counterpart of professional, and it pairs with the privacy concern the sentence is describing.

entire and actual say nothing about the work/home split; family is narrower than the sentence needs.

Consistent across all three: private; screen; disconcerting.

Answer: Option 1

Shortcut. Solve the preposition blank first — it is the cheapest elimination in any cloze. On microscope is not English (it is under a microscope), so option (d) dies without reading anything else.

Then note that video and camera both mean recording, whereas the sentence is about being seen by colleagues. That leaves screen, and option (a) with it.

The general method: scan the four options for one that breaks a fixed preposition or collocation. You will usually find one, and it costs no comprehension at all.