IPMAT Indore 2024 · Verbal Ability · RC passage 2: Passage 2 – Anxiety: evolution, disorder and treatment

Step 1 — find the governing sentence. Paragraph 1:

“It has been built into us; we have inherited it from our evolutionary past, because, in general, anxiety has a survival function.”

Two claims: anxiety is inherited and ingrained, and it generally helps survival.

Step 2 — match. Option (c) states both: “ingrained within us due to our evolutionary heritage” and “generally serves to promote survival.” The hedge generally matches the passage’s own in general exactly — important, because paragraph 2 concedes anxiety can become problematic.

Step 3 — eliminate the three reversals.

(a) Contradicts itself and the passage: it accepts the evolutionary inheritance, then denies anxiety is part of human nature. The passage says it is “built into us”.

(b) “Limited relevance now” is false. The passage gives live modern examples — meeting deadlines, jumping clear of a speeding car.

(d) Inverts the main claim. Disruption is the exception (an anxiety disorder), not the rule.

Answer: Option 3

Shortcut. Sort the options by their verb polarity. Three say anxiety undermines / has limited relevance / disrupts; only one says it promotes survival. The passage’s thesis sentence is positive, so the lone positive option wins before you read any of them closely.

Also watch the hedge. The passage says “in general” — so the correct option must hedge too. “Generally serves to promote” is the only option that preserves it; absolute claims in either direction are wrong.

Step 1 — locate the exercise paragraph (para 5). It makes exactly two claims:

Exercise produces endorphins, “chemicals in the brain that act as natural painkillers.”

“Getting physically tired can help people fall asleep faster and have deeper, more relaxing sleep. As many people suffering from anxiety often have problems with insomnia, just the ability to get a good night’s rest can change their perspectives.”

Step 2 — match option (d). It names the sleep pathway and correctly calls the effect indirect — exercise improves sleep, and better sleep eases anxiety. That is precisely the chain the passage draws.

Step 3 — eliminate.

(a) “Temporary distraction” and “long-term effects remain unclear” are the writer’s opposite: the passage says “there is plenty of evidence that exercise can help.”

(b) A fabricated link. Endorphins and cognitive behaviour therapy are both discussed, but in different paragraphs, and no connection between them is asserted.

(c) The amygdala appears in paragraph 3, in the context of brain imaging research, not exercise. Joining two separate paragraphs is the classic RC trap. Note also “directly target”, which the passage never claims for anything.

Answer: Option 4

Shortcut. Beware options that weld two paragraphs together. Both (b) and (c) take a real term from the passage (endorphins, amygdala) and attach it to a mechanism stated somewhere else. A term being present is not the same as the relationship being asserted.

The surviving option is the one whose whole causal chain — exercise \to sleep \to less anxiety — sits inside a single paragraph. When an option’s logic spans paragraphs, demand an explicit connective in the text; if there isn’t one, it’s a distractor.

Step 1 — map paragraph 4, the treatments paragraph. It names three things in turn and comments on how well each works:

Paragraph 5 then adds exercise, again with an effectiveness claim (“plenty of evidence”).

That is a catalogue of options, each with an evaluation — exactly option (d).

Step 2 — eliminate.

(a) No types of anxiety disorder are ever distinguished, let alone compared.

(b) There are no opposing viewpoints. One voice presents a settled account; nobody disagrees with anybody.

(c) Tempting, because of the word “first” in “the first psychotherapy treatment that was shown to be effective.” But that phrase ranks the treatment by evidence, not by date, and no other treatment is placed in time. One ordinal does not make a history.

Answer: Option 4

Shortcut. Structure questions are answered by scanning connectives, not content. Look at how paragraph 4 moves between items: “The first… Another is… There are, of course, drugs…” That is pure enumeration, and each item carries a verdict attached.

If the paragraph were historical you would see dates or later / subsequently / by the 1980s; if it were contrastive you would see however / on the other hand / critics argue. Neither appears, which disposes of (b) and (c) in one pass.

Step 1 — find the defining sentence (para 2).

“it can get problematic if the danger is imagined rather than real, or is something that is exaggerated… particularly if the perceived danger is out of proportion to the real danger, and it is persistent and disabling, then there is a danger of an anxiety disorder.”

Step 2 — match option (b). “Persistent and exaggerated perception of danger” captures both named conditions — persistent and out of proportion. ✔

Step 3 — eliminate.

(a) The word always breaks it. The passage offers two alternatives joined by or: imagined or exaggerated. An exaggerated response to a genuine danger also qualifies, so “always imagined” is false.

(c) A direct reversal. Proportionate anxiety is the healthy kind; the disorder is marked by disproportion.

(d) Unsupported ranking. Paragraph 3 says scientists are investigating genes and environmental factors (pollution, stress, diet). Neither is said to be primary; the research is ongoing.

Answer: Option 2

Shortcut. Three different failure modes, one per wrong option — a useful pattern to recognise:

1. fails on an absolute quantifier (always),

   fails on a reversal (proportionate vs out of proportion),

   fails on an unsupported comparison (primarily… rather than).

   Scan for these three markers before reading for meaning. Words like always, only, primarily, rather than are where RC options break, and in this question they break three of the four.

Step 1 — trace the whole arc. The passage moves through: what anxiety is and why we evolved it \to when it becomes a disorder \to what research says about brain and genes \to how it is treated \to the role of exercise \to a closing reminder that normal anxiety is adaptive but excessive anxiety needs treatment.

Step 2 — apply the scope test. A main-idea option must cover the whole passage, not one good paragraph.

(a) Exercise — paragraph 5 only. Too narrow.

(b) Psychotherapy and medication — paragraph 4 only. Too narrow.

(c) Genes and environment — paragraph 3 only, and the passage explicitly says this is still under investigation rather than concluded. Too narrow.

(d) The multifaceted nature of anxiety and its adaptive functions ✔ — “multifaceted” covers the evolutionary, pathological, neurological and therapeutic strands; “adaptive functions” matches both the opening (survival function) and the closing (“normal anxiety serves a beneficial and adaptive purpose”).

Answer: Option 4

Shortcut. Count paragraphs per option. Three options each describe exactly one paragraph; one describes all six. In a main-idea question that is decisive on its own.

Then confirm with the first and last paragraphs, which almost always bracket the central claim. Here paragraph 1 says anxiety “has a survival function” and the final paragraph says it “serves a beneficial and adaptive purpose” — the word adaptive appears in the correct option and nowhere else.

Check each against the text.

(a) ✘ Reversed. “There is plenty of evidence that exercise can help with anxiety problems,” and it improves sleep.

(b) ✔ Exact. Exposure therapy “encourages people in a graded way to go into their feared situations.” Graded = gradual.

(c) ✘ Unsupported superlative. CBT is described as “another” treatment. Nothing ranks it first, and in fact the only ordinal in the paragraph (“the first… shown to be effective”) attaches to exposure therapy.

(d) ✘ Directly contradicted: “medication will not cure an anxiety disorder, it can only help to keep it under control while the person receives psychotherapy.” Medication is explicitly an adjunct, not a cure.

Answer: Option 2

Shortcut. The correct option is the only paraphrase; the other three are edits. (a) negates the passage, (c) inserts a superlative, (d) promotes a supporting role to a primary one.

A reliable screen for “which statement is correct” questions: cross out every option containing a superlative (most preferred), an absolute, or a reversal of the passage’s verb. Here that leaves exactly one option standing, and graded \to gradually is a straight synonym swap — the signature of a correct answer.