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: Philosophy, Psychology & Culture; Technology & Society.
TopicSecret weddings
AsksWhere a sentence saying many couples like secret weddings to avoid the pressure of a "big day" fits.
Logic: Blank 2.
Before blank 2 the paragraph gives Covid and living costs as reasons couples avoid invitations, and after it a "plus" adds that celebrities make secret weddings fashionable. The sentence adds a further reason in that chain.
TopicPetitioning and democracy
AsksSummary of a paragraph on petitioning in a democracy.
Correct option: Petitioning has mattered to democracy because it supplements periodic elections with continuous engagement with government.
C covers what petitioning does and how it complements elections. The closest option calls petitioning an "ideal" form of representative democracy, which the passage never claims.
Q3–Q6 · 4 questions · Application & analogy, Except / NOT
AsksWhich copy a Chinese museum would NOT regard as inferior to the original.
Correct option: An exact, identical reproduction.
The passage says the Chinese treat precise reproductions as equal in value to originals. A signed imitation, or a copy in a different medium or scale, isn't an exact reproduction.
AsksWhich scenario does NOT follow from the passage.
Correct option: A seventeenth-century restorer bound to strict fidelity to the original.
The passage says restorers of that era altered ancient works heavily rather than preserving them faithfully. The scenario of heavy intervention fits the passage, so it isn't the answer.
AsksWhich statement does NOT correctly describe the parallel between the Japanese shrine and the German cathedral.
Correct option: That the shrine is continuously restored in the same way as the cathedral.
The passage's parallel is periodic renewal: the shrine is rebuilt every twenty years, and the cathedral's stones are gradually replaced. It gives no evidence of ongoing, cathedral-style restoration at the shrine.
AsksWhich is NOT a consequence of the modern West's reverence for the unassailable original.
Correct option: A shaping of Western attitudes to human cloning, as the option frames it.
The passage connects the original-versus-copy outlook to a contrast between East Asian and Western attitudes to cloning, not in the way D states. The craftsmen-restorers point is directly supported by the cathedral example.
TopicCreative industries and IP
AsksArrange four sentences on the creative industries and intellectual property.
Logic: The creative sector outgrows the world economy (3) → "in fact" its share is even larger (2) → creative design keeps firms ahead (1) → hence IP trade disputes (4).
Sentence 3 introduces the topic, and sentence 2's "in fact" amplifies it. Sentence 1 explains why design matters, and sentence 4's "for this reason" draws the trade consequence.
TopicCollagen from fish skin
AsksArrange four sentences on collagen from fish skin as a wound dressing.
Logic: What collagen is (2) → the disease risk of pig and cow collagen (4) → fish pathogens differ from human ones (3) → fish-skin collagen's useful properties (1).
Sentence 2 defines collagen, and sentence 4 explains why mammal-derived collagen is limited. Sentence 3 shows why fish avoid that problem, and sentence 1 describes the result.
TopicAnimate and inanimate matter
AsksSummary of a paragraph on living and non-living matter.
Correct option: The line between living and non-living is an illusion of our limited perception and dissolves at the quantum level.
D captures the central claim and its quantum evidence. The closest option fixes on a minor detail (stones responding to stimuli) and misses the argument about illusion.
TopicMedieval Ethiopia and Europe
AsksSummary of a paragraph on medieval Ethiopia and Europe.
Correct option: The old story of a weak Ethiopia seeking European help rests on selective sources; new work shows an outward-looking kingdom sending its own missions.
C covers both the flawed old view and the corrected picture. The closest option repeats the old narrative without the correction.
TopicRemote work and commuting
AsksArrange four sentences on commuting, remote work and innovation.
Logic: Shorter commutes boost innovation (2) → some site offices accordingly; inventors lose output on long commutes (1) → some take this as support for remote work (4) → but remote work doesn't guarantee creativity (3).
Sentence 2 introduces the link, and sentence 1 gives evidence. Sentence 4 offers the remote-work reading, and sentence 3's "this" challenges it.
Q12–Q15 · 4 questions · Inference, Main idea & summary, Except / NOT
AsksWhat the remark about the Undead being given unnatural powers to confirm their abnormal status means.
Correct option: People attribute unusual traits to the Undead, and those traits mark them as abnormal.
A restates the point that the powers serve to establish abnormality. The passage never mentions divine status, and the option about natural traits becoming abnormal reverses the logic.
AsksA valid conclusion from the line about eerie, in-between creatures in humanity's earliest times.
Correct option: Early humans believed in beings that were neither fully alive nor fully dead.
The line describes people hearing of such beings, which implies belief in them. The options in which the creatures speak for themselves, or that claim we can understand their lives, go beyond it.
AsksWhat the passage as a whole describes.
Correct option: How ideas about the Undead evolved from vague primitive fears into more defined, named figures.
B covers the full arc from early folklore to later centuries. The link with magic is only one part of that evolution.
AsksWhich statement, if false, would NOT be consistent with the passage.
Correct option: That theories of the Undead kept developing from the Middle Ages into the Enlightenment.
The passage says such theories grew through that period, so denying it contradicts the text. The other statements are either consistent in reverse or simply not mentioned, so their being false raises no contradiction.
Q16–Q19 · 4 questions · Except / NOT, Inference
AsksWhat cannot be inferred from the idea that meditation lets one feel emotions without acting on them.
Correct option: That meditation produces out-of-body experiences that create distance.
The passage attributes the distance to observing feelings without acting, not to any out-of-body state. Passive first reactions, a controlled second response and emotions clouding judgement all follow.
AsksWhat follows logically from the example of the emperor in a military setting.
Correct option: He was a leader in the Roman army.
The scenario places him among his officers, leading the Romans. Revenge is only one hypothetical response the passage lists, not something it says he did.
AsksWhich statement, if false, would contradict the passage.
Correct option: That the Epicureans saw overindulgence in simple pleasures as undesirable.
The passage says the Epicureans enjoyed simple pleasures without indulging in them, so denying C clashes with the text. (Some readers argue for the option about controlling emotions; the key gives C.)
AsksWhich statement can be accepted as true based on the passage.
Correct option: Stoic ideas of cultivating virtue helped lay the ground for the monotheistic religions.
The passage says this directly. The Stoics sought to shed desires for money and power, and the Epicureans enjoyed simple pleasures, so the other options misstate them.
Q20–Q23 · 4 questions · Main idea & summary, Inference, Detail, Except / NOT
AsksThe central claim of the fourth paragraph.
Correct option: Technologies, like laws and customs, shape people by favouring certain sides of human nature, so they are alike in that respect.
The paragraph compares technologies to laws and customs as institutions that serve their inhabitants' interests. The option adding that they do so "as effectively" claims a degree the paragraph never states.
AsksWhich statement the passage supports.
Correct option: Technologies act as an environment that shapes human society.
The passage treats technologies as surroundings that shape their inhabitants, as laws and customs do. The option about laws reflecting human culture reverses a detail of the claim.
AsksWhich statement contradicts the passage's account of how organised masses follow a pattern.
Correct option: That prisons and the public sphere are the sources of the pattern.
The passage says the pattern prevails wherever masses are organised, so these are examples of it, not its origin. The passage explicitly includes socialist systems, so that option is consistent.
AsksWhich claim cannot be inferred from the passage.
Correct option: That technologies favouring certain traits exact a heavy price from lived nature.
The passage says lived nature resists full absorption by society, but never speaks of a cost or damage. The point about parental authority reflecting a socially sanctioned human nature is supported.
TopicThe internet and knowledge
AsksWhere a summary sentence calling the internet both a blessing and a curse for knowledge fits.
Logic: Blank 4 (the end).
The sentence sums up the whole paragraph's argument, so it belongs after the last point, that online sources reinforce existing views and weaken serious reading. Placed earlier, it would interrupt the list of effects.
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