IPMAT Indore 2023 · Verbal Ability · Question 30

Step 1 — find the opener. Sentence 4 introduces TikTok by name with a full description and no backward reference. It also plants the metaphor — “the last sunny corner on the Internet” — that the other three sentences all play on.

Sentence 2 says “the app” (needs an antecedent), 1 begins “Yet” (a connective), and 3 says “its owner” (a pronoun). None can open.

Step 2 — the expansion. Sentence 2 develops the sunny image: “brought a warm glow to its 1 billion plus users, as well as an icy dash of competition”. It continues the temperature metaphor from 4 and supplies the scale.

Step 3 — the turn. Sentence 1 begins “Yet” and reverses direction: “the sunny app has a dark side.” A Yet must come after the positive account it contradicts, so it follows 2.

Step 4 — the explanation. Sentence 3 explains what the dark side is: ByteDance’s Chinese headquarters and the surveillance concern. It must follow 1, which announces that a dark side exists.

The sequence:

4\to 2\to 1\to 3

Answer: 4213

Shortcut. Follow the metaphor. The paragraph runs on a sunny/dark and warm/icy contrast, and the sentence that introduces the metaphor must come first — that is 4, with “last sunny corner on the Internet”.

Then the connectives place everything else: Yet (1) needs something positive before it, and 3’s explanation of the “worrying” owner needs 1’s announcement of a dark side.

A dependable rule: a sentence beginning with Yet, But, However or Nevertheless is never first, and the sentence it contradicts is almost always immediately before it.