All 24 VARC questions in exam order, with the passage topic, what each question asks, the answer and the reasoning.
VA mix: 3 para summary, 3 para jumbles, 0 odd sentence out, 2 sentence placement. RC themes: History, Politics & Society; Technology & Society.
TopicBeacon technology
AsksArrange four sentences on beacon technology.
Logic: What beacons are (4) → phones detect their signals and gauge distance (3) → many industries use them (1) → a store example (2).
Sentence 4 defines beacons, and sentence 3 explains how they work. Sentence 1 widens to their use across industries, and sentence 2 gives the concrete retail case.
Q2–Q5 · 4 questions · Main idea & summary, Except / NOT
AsksThe set of terms that best captures the passage.
Correct option: Chicago School, social organisation, migration, crime.
The passage argues that mass migration disrupted urban social organisation and raised crime. The set with heavy industry and segregation treats background as central and omits social disorganisation.
AsksThe author's fundamental conclusion.
Correct option: Rapid population growth with diverse in-migration causes social disorganisation, which drives crime up.
D follows the passage's causal chain. The other options narrow it to race or treat segregation as a crime-control tool.
AsksWhich is NOT a valid inference from the passage.
Correct option: That African American migrants integrated slowly because they were less organised.
The passage blames residential segregation, crowding, poverty and illness, not any lack of organisation. Links between poverty, disorganisation and crime are supported.
AsksWhich statement does NOT contradict the claim that America became mostly urban over the twentieth century.
Correct option: Large-scale out-migration from rural areas.
Rural-to-urban movement fits the shift. A mid-century census showing more rural residents would contradict it.
Q6–Q9 · 4 questions · Main idea & summary, Inference
AsksThe set of terms that best captures the passage.
Correct option: Complex systems, bio-logic, bioengineering, techno-logic, convergence.
The passage moves from why complex systems need life's logic, through engineering life and lifelike machines, to their convergence. Sets built on its examples (crops, livestock) are weaker.
AsksWhat the author means by saying part of the convergence of the born and the made is linguistic.
Correct option: The meanings of "machine" and "life" are widening until they overlap.
The author says complex things now count as machines and self-sustaining machines as alive. Options treating the two logics as opposed, or bringing in AI, misread the argument.
AsksThe point behind the "veil between the organic and the manufactured" crumpling.
Correct option: Technological advances make it ever harder to tell natural things from man-made ones.
The final paragraph describes made things becoming lifelike and life becoming engineered, so the line blurs. (Some keys print D, but the reasoning on the same page supports C, and D's claim that only apparent reality is manufactured has no basis in the passage.)
AsksThe one statement the passage implies (none of the others is implied).
Correct option: Genetic engineers and bioengineers both drive evolution artificially, the latter with finer control.
The passage describes both fields directing artificial evolution. The other options overstate what philosophers merely suspected or add claims (timing, "pinnacle of expertise") that aren't there.
TopicFashion and cultural appropriation
AsksSummary of a paragraph on fashion and cultural appropriation.
Correct option: Taking a community's designs without consent, credit or payment is appropriation.
C keeps both the ease of copying via social media and the lack of credit or compensation. The closest option narrows to embroidery and calls all copying theft.
TopicDual inheritance and social learning
AsksWhere a sentence saying social learning often happens without understanding why copied practices work fits.
Logic: Blank 2.
It explains what the "second line of inheritance" mentioned just before means in practice, and the next sentence describes how people choose whom to copy. Blank 1 comes before the idea is introduced, and blank 3 would separate copying from the choice of model.
TopicComedy and cancel culture
AsksSummary of a paragraph on comedy and cancel culture.
Correct option: Every joke has a target, and in a free society one should be able to joke about anyone, which cancel culture resists.
A keeps both ideas. The closest option adds a claim about whom comedians should target and drops the free-speech argument.
Q13–Q16 · 4 questions · Except / NOT, Author's view & tone, Application & analogy
AsksWhich practice the passage does NOT recommend for an accurate view of a nation's past and culture.
Correct option: Building an East-versus-West oppositional framework.
The passage criticises the neat split between a spiritual East and a material West as an oversimplification. Examining one's biases, reading widely and engaging with social reality all match its critique.
AsksThe claim the author would be unlikely to endorse.
Correct option: That India was colonised even though its technical knowledge matched the West's.
The passage treats Europe's technical edge as what let it colonise Asia, so parity contradicts it. The author faults Orientalists for ignoring the material side of Indian life, so he would accept that Indian culture recognised it.
AsksWhich statement is NOT supported by the passage.
Correct option: That the idea of Indian spirituality consoled the European colonisers.
The passage says that consolation belonged to the colonised Indian intelligentsia. Orientalists working through selected texts, and later Indian opinion adopting the spiritual-material framing, are both supported.
AsksWhich research style most resembles the Orientalists' approach.
Correct option: Generalising about a whole nation from a narrow, hand-picked body of material.
The Orientalists built a picture of a civilisation from selected classical texts. The option about outsiders' views misses that selective generalisation.
Q17–Q20 · 4 questions · Inference, Except / NOT
AsksWhy the doctors in the misdiagnosis case missed the bigger picture.
Correct option: The digital templates shaped what they recorded and focused on, narrowing their thinking.
The passage says the templates probably helped induce tunnel vision. "Forced" overstates this, and the problem was too narrow a focus, not too little data.
AsksWhich example does NOT fit human-centred automation.
Correct option: Email auto-complete that acts without the user's direction.
Optional medical feedback, a thermostat following the resident's settings and on-request interpretations all keep the human in charge. Auto-complete takes over instead.
AsksWhich concern about advanced automation the author does NOT raise.
Correct option: That computers could replace people altogether.
The author raises software blunting learning, templates misleading diagnosis and users ceasing to think. He treats software as a partner to experts, not a replacement.
AsksWhy the group with advanced software flailed around in the study.
Correct option: They expected the software to do the hard thinking for them.
The passage ties the aimless clicking to dependence on the software. It never questions the users' underlying skill.
TopicMeritocracy and humility
AsksArrange four sentences on meritocracy and humility.
Logic: Meritocracy is inevitable in free societies (3) → "but" recent books usefully question merit (2) → accepting luck helps us see failure as shared (1) → "and that in turn" builds a kinder society (4).
Sentence 3 sets out the principle, and sentence 2's "but" brings in the counterpoint. Sentence 1 develops what accepting limits does, and sentence 4 draws the final consequence.
TopicOutdoor childhood and introversion
AsksArrange four sentences on a mother's push for outdoor play and an introverted child.
Logic: Mum wanted us outdoors (2) → family tales of her idyllic country childhood (3) → I felt guilty preferring to stay in (1) → to a shy child this felt menacing (4).
Sentence 2 introduces the push, and sentence 3 gives the stories behind it. Sentence 1 gives the child's reaction, and sentence 4's "that" sums up how the pressure felt.
TopicA history of alphabetical order
AsksSummary of a paragraph on the history of alphabetical order.
Correct option: Alphabetical ordering took centuries to catch on because of religious deference and because its usefulness wasn't yet seen.
B keeps both the delay and its causes. The closest option describes a formal ban, where the passage describes only reluctance.
TopicReturn-to-office policies
AsksWhere a sentence on the uncertainty created by workers' slow, uneven return to offices fits.
Logic: Blank 2.
The sentence opens with "this", which needs the preceding description of the slow, uneven trickle back. It also leads into the point that firms are still working out policies. Blank 4 comes after the paragraph has moved on.
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