IPMAT Indore 2024 · Verbal Ability · Question 27

Step 1 — find the connective that governs the blank. Sentence 3 begins:

“Athletes must therefore undergo rigorous training regimens to maintain peak physical condition…”

Therefore means the blank is the cause of which rigorous physical training is the consequence. So the blank must be about the body — physical demands.

Step 2 — test option (a). “Sports careers are often short-lived due to the physical demands and risks of injury” ✔

The logic reads perfectly: because careers are short and injuries threaten them, athletes therefore train rigorously to stay in peak condition. The cause (physical vulnerability) matches the effect (physical conditioning) exactly.

It also fits the paragraph’s shape: sentence 1 gives the upside, the blank gives the first downside, sentence 4 adds a second downside (“Additionally, competition … is fierce”), and sentence 5 resolves with “Despite the challenges”. The word challenges is plural and retrospective — it needs at least two, and the blank supplies the first.

Step 3 — eliminate.

(b) Pressure and stress are psychological. They would motivate mental resilience, not physical training — and mental resilience is already covered in sentence 4, which would make (b) redundant.

(c) Career variety is a neutral fact that creates no challenge at all, so “Despite the challenges” would have nothing to refer to.

(d) Higher education is off-topic and contradicts the drift toward athletic demands.

Answer: Option 1

Shortcut. Hunt for the connective — it names the relationship you must supply. Here “therefore” in the next sentence demands that the blank be a cause, and the effect is explicitly physical (“peak physical condition”).

So the test reduces to: which option is about the body? Only (a). Option (b) is the near-miss, and it fails on category — mental, not physical.

Also use the closing sentence as a checksum. “Despite the challenges” requires the paragraph to have listed challenges. Options (c) and (d) list no challenge at all, so they cannot be right whatever else they say.