IPMAT Indore 2024 · Verbal Ability · Question 33

Blank 1 — read ahead before filling it. The next sentence says “Populists in particular latch on to social media”. The phrase in particular marks populists as a subset of the group named in blank 1. So blank 1 must be a broader category that contains populists and is served by bypassing institutions.

autocrats ✔ — populists are a recognisable subset of would-be autocrats, and the whole paragraph describes the erosion of institutional restraint.

entrepreneurs (b) ✘ — populists are not a kind of entrepreneur, and the paragraph is entirely political.

anarchists (c) ✘ — anarchists oppose concentrated authority; populist leaders seek it. The paragraph’s third sentence is about supporting a leader.

democrats (d) ✘ — the paragraph describes escaping democratic restraints, so this inverts the meaning.

Blank 2 — what do they do to the restraints? The sentence contrasts connecting “directly with people” against restraints “that political parties would have provided”. The counterfactual would have signals that those restraints are now absent.

bypassing ✔ — going around them. It fits “directly” precisely: direct contact means the intermediary is skipped.

enforcing (b) ✘ — the exact opposite.

unscrupulous (c) ✘ — an adjective where the slot demands a participle; it is not even the right part of speech.

avoiding (d) is close in meaning but belongs to an option already dead on blank 1.

Blank 3 — what does an echo chamber create the illusion of? It makes a partial view look total.

uniformly ✔ — “a whole people uniformly supports” captures the manufactured impression of complete agreement.

presumably (b) ✘ hedges, which destroys the point about false certainty.

unanimously (c) is close in meaning, but applies to a formal vote or decision rather than a diffuse popular sentiment.

surprisingly (d) ✘ adds an irrelevant note of surprise.

Answer: Option 1

Shortcut. “In particular” in the next sentence is the key. It tells you blank 1 names a category containing populists. Run the test: are populists a kind of entrepreneur? No. Anarchist? No. Democrat? No — the paragraph is about escaping democratic restraint. Autocrat? Yes.

Then confirm on blank 2 with one word: “directly”. Connecting directly with people means going around the intermediaries — bypassing. Option (b)’s enforcing reverses it, and (c)’s unscrupulous is the wrong part of speech entirely.

Note the part-of-speech check — it is the cheapest elimination available in any cloze, and it costs no comprehension at all.