CAT 2022 VARC Questions — Slot 2

A keywords question: the right set names the concepts the passage keeps returning to — and drops nothing central.

The passage anchors itself to five key deduction ideas: humans as musicking creatures (its opening and closing note); musicking, the coined term running through every paragraph; linguistic capacities ("humans are … language-makers in addition to music-makers"); symbol-making (Cassirer's Homo symbolicus); and modern humanity ("a principal marker of modern humanity"). Option C lists exactly these.

• B drops the single most important coined word, "musicking."
• A swaps in peripheral phrases ("Cognitive psychology," "Antique") that appear only in passing.
• D leans on one-off details (Cassirer, "psychological vantage") and omits "modern humanity" and "linguistic capacities."

💡 Teacher tip: a good keyword set must include the passage's central coined term. Any option that quietly drops it — as B drops "musicking" — can be ruled out fast.

Answer: C — Humans; Musicking; Linguistic capacities; Symbol-making; Modern humanity

A "what is the author communicating" question — read the quoted line together with the sentence that follows it.

The author states "Humans today make music," then acknowledges qualifications (only some perform, training is needed, specialists versus non-musicians). But right after telling us to "think beyond all the qualifications," he writes: "These qualifications, whatever their local merit, are moot in the face of the overarching truth that making music … is the province of all those who perceive and experience what is made."

So his point is: yes, caveats exist, but they do not undo the core truth. That is C.

• A just offers a dictionary-style gloss of "bald statement" and misses the actual claim.
• B says the statement "requires no qualifications," which contradicts the passage — the qualifications do exist, they are simply moot.
• D ("free reign to musical expressions") is unrelated to what the sentence means.

Answer: C — Although there may be many caveats, the statement is essentially true

The question asks specifically for a valid argument about the emergence of musicking — so the answer must speak to its history/timeline.

The passage addresses the timeline directly: "If we look back 20,000 years … we reach the lives of humans whose musical capacities were probably little different from our own." Option C restates exactly this, and it is squarely about emergence.

• A restates who counts as a musicker — a definitional point, not about emergence.
• B concerns the nature of musicking (not language-like), again not its emergence.
• D says "all musical work" lies in the overlap between language and music, but the passage says capacities "mostly overlap" and "a few may be distinct and dedicated" — so "all" overstates, making D false.

Answer: C — 20,000 years ago, human musical capacities were not very different from today

A weaken question: the author claims musicking is a deep, innate, universal human trait — so the weakener must show it is instead learned and culturally variable.

The claim rests on musicking being "a principal marker of modern humanity," arising from "innate dispositions" shared by nearly all humans. To undercut it, you show it is not innate and universal but culturally produced and variable.

Option D does exactly that: if musical capacities are "primarily socio-cultural," and that explains "the wide diversity of musical forms," then musicking varies across cultures rather than being a shared innate trait — directly weakening the "fundamental human commonality" claim.

The others don't weaken:

• A (non-musical capacities matter more for survival) doesn't deny that music is universal.
• B (musicking arises from unconscious dispositions) actually fits the author's "innate dispositions" — it supports him.
• C (musicking is older) agrees with his own "ancient emergence."

Answer: D — Musical capacities are primarily socio-cultural, which explains the wide diversity of musical forms

Para-jumble: find the sentence that states the problem in general terms, then move from examples to solution to detail.

Opener — Sentence 2. It frames the gap with no back-reference: discourse fixates on cutting emissions, "but biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse are caused by myriad and diverse reasons."

2 → 1. Sentence 1 supplies those "myriad and diverse reasons" as examples — "From chemical pollutants … to the damming of rivers to invasive species" — and concludes "there is no single tech solution."

1 → 4. Sentence 4 takes that conclusion and states the remedy: "our environmental crisis requires large political solutions, not minor technological ones … a path of stable-state economies."

4 → 3. Sentence 3 then details what "this" solution "would require" — "legislation that recognises the rights of future generations and other species."

So 2 → 1 → 4 → 3: the causes are diverse, not just emissions → here are those diverse causes, so no single tech fix → therefore large political solutions → which would require forward-looking legislation.

Answer: 2143

This is a sentence-insertion question: the sentence you place has to make sense with what comes before the blank and lead cleanly into what comes after. Two clues in the sentence pin it down.

The sentence to place: "This was years in the making but fast-tracked during the pandemic, when 'people started being more mindful about their food', he explained."

Clue 1 — the word "he". "He explained" needs a named speaker already on the page. The only person quoted is Karmakar, and he is introduced in the line "For Karmakar, a renewed interest in ghee is emblematic of a return-to-basics movement in India." That line sits just before blank 3. So the sentence can only come after Karmakar appears — which rules out blanks 1 and 2, where "he" would point to nobody.

Clue 2 — the word "This". "This was years in the making" must refer back to something just named. The "return-to-basics movement" is named right before blank 3, and the sentence's idea (pandemic-era mindfulness about food) flows straight into the next line: "This movement is also part of an overall trend towards 'slow food'."

Drop it into blank 3 and it reads smoothly: Karmakar sees a return-to-basics movement → it was years in the making, sped up by the pandemic, he says → and this movement is also part of the "slow food" trend.

Why blank 4 fails: placing it there would cut Karmakar off from his own quote and "This was years in the making" would no longer point back cleanly across the intervening sentences about slow food and cultural ties.

Answer: Option 3

A sentence-insertion question: the sentence to place is "Most were first-time users of a tablet and a digital app." Find the blank where "Most" has a clear group to refer to, and where the tablet detail fits.

"Most" needs a specific, countable group of people just before it. The only sentence naming such a group is "We piloted Aage Badhein in early 2021 with over 400 women from rural areas," which sits immediately before blank 4. Dropping the sentence there reads: pilot with 400 rural women → "Most were first-time users of a tablet and a digital app" → "The digital solution generated a large amount of interest." That flows perfectly — their newness to tablets makes the strong community interest meaningful.

The other blanks fail:

• Before blank 1 there is no specific group at all — "Most" would have nothing to refer to.
• Before blank 2 the group is a vague "Hindi-speaking audience," and adding "first-time users of a tablet" there clashes with the very next clause about "minimal to no experience with digital services" (pure repetition).
• Before blank 3 the preceding group is a diffuse "youth / student / household members" — far too loose for "Most."

Answer: Option 4

Para-jumble: the strongest clue here is a phrase in one sentence that names what another sentence just described — lock that pair first.

The key link is 3 → 1. Sentence 3 ends "your cheerfulness moves into the self: the interior of the self is changed by the power of cheer," and Sentence 1 opens "The trajectory of cheerfulness through the self is linked to the history of the word 'cheer' …" That phrase, "cheerfulness through the self," names exactly the movement 3 has just described, so 1 follows 3.

1 → 4. Sentence 1 introduces the word "cheer," from an Old French word for "face"; Sentence 4 gives the concrete medieval illustration — characters in the "Canterbury Tales" have a "'piteous' or a 'sober' cheer," and "'cheer' is an expression and a body part." It fleshes out the face-meaning 1 raised.

4 → 2. Sentence 2 traces the word's evolution onward: Bible translations "expanded the noun 'cheer' into the more abstract 'cheerful-ness'," a quality "defining the self and a moral community." It moves from the concrete face-word (4) to the abstract emotion, closing the paragraph.

So 3 → 1 → 4 → 2: a cheerful face changes the inner self → that movement is tied to the word's history → the medieval face-meaning of "cheer" → its later expansion into abstract "cheerfulness."

Answer: 3142

Para-summary: state the paragraph's core in one line, then keep the option that captures it without contradiction.

The core. The passage dismantles the "timeless artwork" myth: museum pieces are "objects of decay" — pigments discolour, varnishes crack, canvases warp — because of "inherent vice," illustrated by Hirst's shark rotting in its tank. Essence: artworks don't last forever; they deteriorate, and the task is to slow that decay. That is D.

• A adds claims the text never makes — that artists "cannot preserve their works beyond their life," and that restoration is museums' "moral responsibility."
• B still calls the works "timeless art treasures," contradicting the passage's whole point, and swaps "varnish" for the odd word "polish."
• C says museums aim to "preserve [artworks] forever," again contradicting the central claim that decay is inherent and can only be slowed.

Answer: D — Artworks may not last forever; they may deteriorate with time, and the challenge is to slow down their degeneration

Para-summary: watch the passage's careful hedging — the right option keeps the "some / several" qualifier and doesn't overreach.

The core. Evidence now shows that some of the earliest cities were organised along egalitarian lines — no temples, palaces, administrators or ruling stratum — so urban life "does not, necessarily, imply any particular form of political organization," and this "open[s] our eyes to egalitarian possibilities." Option D captures this precisely: evidence of egalitarian urban life in some ancient cities, far less hierarchical.

• B is the closest rival but overreaches — it says "ancient cities were not organised in this way," dropping the passage's repeated qualifiers ("several," "in some regions … in others," "some").
• A captures only the method of inference (absence of temples/palaces), a supporting detail.
• C invents a transformation story (egalitarian → hierarchical as administrators rose) that the passage never tells.

💡 Teacher tip: in summary questions, a single quantifier decides it. When a passage keeps saying "some," an option that says "all ancient cities" has already gone too far.

Answer: D — We now have the evidence in support of the existence of an egalitarian urban life in some ancient cities, where political and civic organisation was far less hierarchical

Para-jumble: anchor the opening pair with a repeated phrase, then follow the cause-and-effect chain.

2 → 4. Sentence 2 says food "is commonly framed through the lens of individual choice," and Sentence 4 opens "The individualized framing of choice …" — 4 names exactly what 2 introduced, so it follows.

4 → 3. Sentence 4 says this framing "draws away from the structural obstacles," and Sentence 3 explains when that is "particularly so": in a neoliberal context where "the state has transferred the responsibility for food onto individual consumers" — the mechanism that hides structure.

3 → 1. Sentence 3 ends with responsibility shifted onto "individual consumers," and Sentence 1 shows where that burden lands: "Women … feel they alone are responsible for mediating a toxic and unhealthy food system."

So 2 → 4 → 3 → 1: food framed as individual choice → that framing hides structural obstacles → neoliberalism offloads responsibility onto individuals → women end up bearing it alone.

Answer: 2431

A "best explains this quote" question: read the line in the light of the sentence just before it.

The quote — "the stock exchange and the black market are both market institutions, one formal one not" — comes right after the author says "There are some institutions that come in both informal and formal variants, as well as in mixed ones." The two examples illustrate exactly that: they occupy the same domain (markets) yet one is formal and the other informal. That is C.

• A reduces it to "instruments traded in two places," losing the formal/informal institutional point.
• B ("both organised by rules") erases the very contrast — formal vs informal — that the example exists to show.
• D ("both dependent on the market to survive") is trivially true and misses the lesson entirely.

Answer: C — even within the same domain, different kinds of institutions can co-exist

"All are false EXCEPT" — so three inferences contradict the passage and exactly one matches it.

D is the true one. The passage defines natural languages through Ferguson's phrase: "the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design." That means they arose from human use without a conscious designer — precisely what D says: "no conscious human intent is evident in the formation of language."

Why the others are false:

• A claims culture and tradition have "no analytical, explanatory or expository power," but the passage says they are "analytically isolated for explanatory or expository purposes" — the opposite.
• B invents a claim that friendship "cannot be found in" joint-stock companies; the passage uses each only as an example of informal vs formal, never says this.
• C says family, governance and the military "cannot be consciously modified," but the passage insists they are "very much the product of conscious attempts to mould and plan them" (family law, constitutions, and so on).

Answer: D — "natural language" refers to a stage where no conscious human intent is evident in its formation

A detail question anchored to the first paragraph — read the two "characterisations" straight from the text.

The opening presents the philosophy of the social sciences two ways: "as an arena of thought and as a set of social institutions. The two characterisations overlap but are not congruent." The next line bridges them: "Academic disciplines are social institutions."

So the two characterisations are academic disciplines (the "arena of thought" side) and institutions (the "social institutions" side). They overlap — academic disciplines are a kind of institution — but are not congruent, since the categories don't map perfectly. That is D.

• A fails: "an arena of thought" and "academic disciplines" are the same side, not two different characterisations.
• C fails: "the philosophy of the social sciences" is the subject being characterised, not one of the characterisations.
• B ("individuals"/"social structures") is lifted from a later, unrelated sentence.

Answer: D — "academic disciplines" and "institutions"

A main-idea question: pick the statement that the whole passage builds toward, not a single example or a rejected view.

After surveying many senses of "institution" — universal versus local, formal versus informal, culture and tradition, language — the author explicitly settles the definition: institutions are, "very generally … structures that serve to coordinate the actions of individuals." Every example in the passage (markets, family, language) fits under that umbrella, so it is the essence. That is D.

• A states a view the author actually rejects: "The view taken here is different."
• B narrows everything to language and wrongly calls it only "formal," when the passage says language is both formal and informal — a sub-point, not the whole.
• C is just one illustrative example (the stock exchange and black market), not the central idea.

Answer: D — Institutions are structures that serve to coordinate the actions of individuals

An EXCEPT question: the author endorses three of these reforms; find the one he would reject.

The author's whole argument attacks "technical-social dualism," defined in the passage as "the idea that the technical and social dimensions of engineering problems are readily separable." He wants the opposite — social concerns folded into design.

Option D says he would approve of "moving towards technical-social dualism." That is self-contradictory (dualism is precisely the separation he condemns) and is the very mindset he criticises. He would not approve of it.

The other three he clearly supports:

• A — sustainability made intrinsic: he laments that "we hardly question whether devices are built sustainably."
• B — responsible design over speed and scale: he criticises hollow ideals like "speed to build, and ability to scale."
• C — community-based, local-knowledge design: he praises Kadir's "place-based knowledge … in collaboration with communities."

Answer: D — moving towards technical-social dualism …

EXCEPT question: three options are real harms the passage attributes to a technical-only focus in medicine; find the one it does not.

The passage lists concrete harms:

• A — neglect of tech for marginalised groups: endometriosis diagnostics and treatment were "not built because they were not deemed important."
• B — devices still using old racial biases: spirometers carry "correction factors" from research "done by eugenicists," left unadjusted.
• C — exclusion from trials causing wrong doses: women are "incorrectly dosed" because "they have been inadequately represented in clinical trials."

D says the harm is "incorrect assignment of people as female at birth." The passage never claims anyone was wrongly assigned. "People assigned female at birth" is simply its phrasing for females; the actual problem it names is their under-representation in research, not a mistaken assignment. D misstates the cause.

Answer: D — incorrect assignment of people as female at birth …

This asks for the author's central claim — capture the main argument, not a side point or a reversal of it.

The author says current teaching primes students to believe their decisions are "purely objective, as it is grounded in math and science" — the doctrine that the technical can be separated from the social. In short, students are trained to pursue objective technical outcomes with the social dimension stripped out. That is exactly B.

Checking the rest:

• A is close in spirit but adds an unsupported historical "shift" and dilutes the claim into a vague pursuit of "technological perfection."
• C reverses the tone — the author attacks this false objectivity; he never praises it as producing "much-needed universal solutions."
• D flatly inverts the meaning: it calls dualism a way to incorporate social concerns, when dualism is precisely what excludes them.

Answer: B — engineering students today are taught to focus on objective technical outcomes, independent of the social dimensions of their work

EXCEPT question: three quotes explain why marginalised people are discriminated against in technology; find the one that is about something else.

• A names a root cause: technical ideals are "social and political choices determined by a dominant culture focused on economic growth for the most privileged."
• C names a direct cause of racial discrimination in devices: eugenicist "racially based adjustments" treating nonwhite people as inferior.
• D names a mechanism: "subjective beliefs treated as facts … can encode social inequities."

B is about environmental damage — medical waste and "health care accounting for 10 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions." That is a real problem the author raises, but it concerns ecological harm, not discrimination against marginalised people. Different category.

Answer: B — "And we hardly question whether devices are built sustainably …"

Para-summary: fix the passage's frame and scope first, then match it exactly.

The frame. Today's anxieties about big-data behavioural control "echo Cold War-era" fears and have "inspired recent polemics about the need to rediscover solitude and disconnect." So the essence is that big data — by exposing our private lives to algorithms — has reignited the debate over freedom and the need for privacy. That is B.

• A overstates: the passage says we have been "exposed," not "enslaved," and it drops the privacy/solitude half of the point.
• C captures only the Cold-War comparison, which is a framing device, not the core claim.
• D is close but narrows the cause to "artificial intelligence," whereas the passage's engine is big data and algorithms processing personal data; it also misses that the debate is being resurfaced, which B states.

Answer: B — With big data making personal information freely available, the debate on the nature of freedom and the need for privacy has resurfaced

This asks which creature's camouflage is most dissimilar to an octopus's — so rank each option by how much of the octopus's toolkit it shares.

The passage says the octopus is a cephalopod and shares its whole camouflage system — chromatophores, iridophores, papillae and leucophores — with the other cephalopods named in the text.

• Cuttlefish (B) and squids (D) are repeatedly grouped with octopuses: "cuttlefish and octopuses possess an additional type of reflector cell called a leucophore," and "a squid or cuttlefish can imitate the look of a coral reef." Highly similar — eliminate both.
• Polar bear (C) appears as an analogy: leucophores scatter full-spectrum light so the animal "appear[s] white in a similar way that a polar bear's fur appears white." So it shares at least one mechanism (passive white reflection).
• Sea snails (A) are described as ordinary shelled molluscs — "most are shelled invertebrates with a dorsal foot." The whole premise is that cephalopods lack a shell and so evolved active camouflage. Sea snails have none of the four camouflage organs.

Since sea snails share nothing of the octopus's camouflage system, they are the most dissimilar.

Answer: A — sea snails

An EXCEPT question: three options are genuine reasons the octopus is a "misfit"; pick the one that is not.

The opening defines "misfits" as cephalopods that "don't look like their cousins at all" — that is, they depart from the standard mollusc body plan. On that test:

• B — no shell: "they don't have a shell covering them." A clear departure from typical shelled molluscs. (A reason.)
• C — higher intelligence: "brains the size of a walnut, which is large for an invertebrate … a higher cognition." (A reason.)
• D — several arms: "Cephalopods are all arms," unlike the dorsal foot of other molluscs. (A reason.)

A — being eaten by humans and other animals — is mentioned ("pretty much everything feeds on cephalopods, including humans"), but the passage uses it to explain why they benefit from higher cognition, not why they look unlike their relatives. Being preyed upon does not make an animal a misfit within its own family.

Answer: A — are consumed by humans and other animals

Find the one stated ability that the passage does not support.

Three of the options are directly confirmed:

• C — change colour: chromatophores hold red, yellow and brown pigment, and muscles pull the sacs open to "display the colours on the skin."
• A — blend into surrounding colour: leucophores reflect filtered light, so "if the water appears blue … they appear blue; if the water appears green, they appear green."
• B — change texture: papillae can be "deformed to make a texture bumpy," letting an octopus "appear jagged" or match "the texture of the substrate."

D claims cephalopods can "take on the colour of their predator." The passage describes every mechanism as matching the environment — water colour, substrate, coral reef — and never once mentions matching a predator. D introduces something the text simply does not say.

Answer: D — Cephalopods can take on the colour of their predator

An EXCEPT question about weakening: three statements would genuinely hamper the octopus's camouflage; find the one that would not.

First, what colour-change depends on. The chromatophore system needs two things: a nerve impulse from the brain, and radial muscles that pull the pigment sacs open. And it works only because, at the depths cephalopods live, the light reflects red, yellow and brown — exactly the pigments they carry.

Now test each:

• B — cold water making neural signals difficult would weaken it: colour change needs the brain's impulse to reach the muscles.
• C — light actually reflecting red, green and yellow at those depths would weaken it: the animal carries only red/yellow/brown pigment, so it could not match a green-reflecting environment.
• D — pressure making radial-muscle movement difficult would weaken it: those muscles are what open the sacs.

A — that chromatophores are merely half as numerous as iridophores and leucophores — changes nothing. The four systems are complementary layers, not competitors, and the passage never says camouflage depends on chromatophores outnumbering the others. A ratio between cooperating organs tells us nothing about how well any of them works.

Answer: A — the number of chromatophores … is half the number of iridophores and leucophores