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, 2 odd sentence out, 0 sentence placement. RC themes: Philosophy, Psychology & Culture; Language, Arts & Literature; History, Politics & Society.
TopicEthics of genetic enhancement
AsksFive sentences on the ethics of genetic enhancement.
Logic: 3 → 2 → 5 → 4: genetics promises cures but also enhancement → people feel uneasy but can't say why → one objection: perfection as a bid for mastery → such debates need questions philosophers avoid.
The four sentences discuss the ethics of enhancement. Sentence 1 praises a book for teaching moral argument, a shift in focus, so it is the odd one.
Q2–Q5 · 4 questions · Except / NOT, Inference, Detail, Author's view & tone
AsksWhich argument the author does NOT discuss.
Correct option: That ignoring scepticism is the best way to handle it.
The author calls ignoring it the most common response, not the best. The sceptic's view, the link between knowledge and justified action, and its relevance to everyone are discussed.
AsksThe logic of the line that we can never glimpse things as they are in themselves.
Correct option: If reality is independent of our perception, we cannot perceive that reality as it is.
D restates the conditional reasoning. Presenting the sceptic's claim as established fact, or narrowing perception to eyesight, misreads it.
AsksWhat determines how confidently we hold beliefs, per the last paragraph.
Correct option: How we acquired a belief and how widely trusted people around us endorse it.
The final paragraph names exactly these two factors. Another option describes what governs how closely we scrutinise beliefs, not our confidence in them.
AsksThe statement the author is most likely to support.
Correct option: If reality is independent of our perceptions, we can't check our representations against it, so knowledge of it may be out of reach.
The sceptical argument in the passage leads to this conclusion. Social endorsement is presented as a source of confidence, not as a justification for rational action.
TopicThe Northwest Passage dispute
AsksArrange four sentences on the Northwest Passage dispute.
Logic: Canada claims sovereignty (2) → the US calls it an international strait (1) → the legal question is unresolved, though an agreement exists (4) → an ice-free Arctic may make the dispute fade (3).
Sentence 2 sets out the claim, and sentence 1 the counter-claim. Sentence 4 gives the unresolved status, and sentence 3 looks ahead.
Q7–Q10 · 4 questions · Except / NOT, Author's view & tone, Purpose of example
AsksWhich is NOT a reason given for languages declining.
Correct option: The internet concentrating attention on a few languages.
The passage presents the internet as a help to endangered languages. Catastrophe, state pressure or neglect, and speakers switching for economic gain are all named causes.
AsksWhich claim about indigenous languages cannot be inferred.
Correct option: That their vocabulary and grammar have been hard to document.
They carry cultural and environmental knowledge, are vulnerable when only spoken, and communities work to protect them. Unusual words and grammar are mentioned as a feature, never as a documentation problem.
AsksThe author's likely position.
Correct option: In favour of a world where more people speak several languages.
The author argues that multilingualism suits an interdependent world and that monolingualism is the real concern. State coercion appears only as a cause of decline, not as a remedy.
AsksWhy the author mentions Welsh.
Correct option: To show that a language can revive even after people abandoned it for another.
The Welsh example follows the discussion of language shift as a hopeful case. The passage doesn't credit state effort or globalisation for its revival.
TopicIndustrialists and the unemployed
AsksSummary of a paragraph on industrialists and the unemployed in a downturn.
Correct option: Capitalists use the anxieties and organisation of the unemployed to steer politics toward their own interests.
A captures the exploitative alliance. The closest option presents the two groups as equal partners with a shared goal.
TopicFusion power and the scientific method
AsksArrange four sentences on the scientific method and fusion power.
Logic: The scientific method is the greatest invention (3) → insight needs logic plus experiment and observation (2) → imagine commercial fusion power (1) → "this" depends on the method's insights (4).
Sentences 3 and 2 present the method and how it works. Sentence 1 introduces a future invention, and sentence 4's "this" ties it back to the method.
Q13–Q16 · 4 questions · Main idea & summary, Author's view & tone, Inference
AsksThe central choice the passage revolves around.
Correct option: Social cohesion versus objective truth.
The passage ends by framing scholars' dilemma: unite people through shared fictions, or tell the truth at the cost of division. Power is background; the other options are narrower details.
AsksThe statement about power the author would NOT reject.
Correct option: Leaders keep power by departing from the truth, because people find bare reality hard to accept.
The author argues that uncompromising truth is a poor political strategy. The option saying myth-only leaders lose power contradicts the claim that fictions often win.
AsksWhat successful leaders share with scholars, as implied.
Correct option: They know how to balance truth against keeping people united.
The passage presents the scholars' choice between truth and harmony, and leaders face the same balance. It never says leaders need both kinds of power to stay in office.
AsksWhich quote could support the criticism that the author overrates fiction.
Correct option: The scholars' dilemma, where unity through shared fiction is weighed as a serious rival to truth.
This line puts fiction at the centre of a major choice, which is where overstatement can be argued. The other quotes describe truth-based power without inflating fiction.
TopicCreativity as economic value
AsksSummary of a paragraph on creativity as economic value.
Correct option: Creativity is so prized that the concept has lost its meaning, and the obsession hinders real creativity.
D keeps both the inflated value and its harmful effect. The closest option stops at "impossible to define" and overstates it.
TopicDevelopment as shared responsibility
AsksArrange four sentences on development as shared responsibility.
Logic: We are at a turning point (2) → fifty years ago development promised betterment, since corrupted (4) → "but" it must now be shared duty between rich and poor (1) → "this" requires an ethical way of living (3).
Sentence 2 opens, and sentence 4 gives the history. Sentence 1's "but" turns to the present need, and sentence 3's "this" spells out what it demands.
Q19–Q22 · 4 questions · Inference, Except / NOT, Strengthen / weaken
AsksWhat lies behind the "contradictory pulls" on Indian nationalism.
Correct option: It resisted colonial rule yet had to borrow the coloniser's material techniques.
The passage says nationalists had to learn the West's material methods while protecting their spiritual core. The option placing the borrowing in the spiritual sphere reverses this.
AsksWhich claim about the spiritual/material divide does NOT hold, per the passage.
Correct option: That it simply carried forward older divisions in Indian culture.
The passage says the colonial encounter gave the divide new meaning. Its feeding into the home/world framework and preserving identity are supported.
AsksWhat would undermine the passage's central claims.
Correct option: Colonial contact changed every sphere of Indian culture, including the spiritual one.
The argument rests on a protected spiritual core, so showing that it was altered breaks the premise. The options about rejecting women's education, or modernity shaping the material side, fit the passage.
AsksHow liberals viewed nationalism's treatment of women.
Correct option: As reinforcing conservative, traditional gender roles.
The passage says liberals were troubled by the social conservatism of nationalist practice. One option describes the nationalist framework itself, and another is the author's own claim.
TopicPreprints in biology and physics
AsksSummary of a paragraph on preprints in biology and physics.
Correct option: Physicists share work before peer review and speed progress, while conservative biologists frown on it.
B keeps both the contrast between fields and the benefit. The closest option drops the comparison.
TopicNeuromarketing
AsksFive sentences on neuromarketing.
Logic: 3 → 1 → 4 → 2: what neuromarketing is → hype in advertising → critics see a bid to make an art a science → scientists remain unconvinced.
The four sentences describe the new field and reactions to it. Sentence 5, on marketers borrowing older social-science methods, shifts away from neuromarketing.
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