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: Technology & Society; Philosophy, Psychology & Culture; Science & Nature; Language, Arts & Literature.
TopicA learning app
AsksWhere a sentence saying most participants had never used a tablet or app fits.
Logic: Blank 4.
"Most" needs a group already in view, and the only one is the 400 rural women in the pilot, introduced just before blank 4. After it, the paragraph notes the strong interest the app sparked. At earlier blanks no users have yet been mentioned.
Q2–Q5 · 4 questions · Except / NOT, Main idea & summary
AsksWhat the author would NOT approve of in a reformed engineering curriculum.
Correct option: Moving toward "technical–social dualism".
The author criticises that very dualism for separating social from technical concerns. Sustainability, responsibility over speed and community-based local knowledge all fit the author's call.
AsksWhich is NOT an example of the harm caused by prizing purely technical ideals in medicine.
Correct option: Faulty drug treatment blamed on assigning the wrong sex at birth.
Neglected diseases of marginalised groups, race-based device corrections and under-representation in trials causing wrong dosing are all in the passage. D misstates the cause.
AsksWhat the author claims about how engineers are currently taught.
Correct option: To pursue supposedly objective technical outcomes while ignoring the social side of their work.
The passage says students learn to see their decisions as purely objective and to dismiss social and political factors. Technical–social dualism is the problem the author wants to fix, not a method for including social concerns.
AsksWhich is NOT one of the author's reasons for discrimination in technological interventions.
Correct option: Sustainability and medical waste, a separate concern.
The author's reasons concern dominant cultures shaping technical ideals and biased correction factors. Environmental waste is raised as its own issue, not as a cause of discrimination.
TopicFood individualism
AsksArrange four sentences on framing food as individual choice.
Logic: Food framed as personal choice (2) → that framing satisfies a wish for agency but hides structural barriers (4) → "this" is especially true under neoliberalism (3) → women end up feeling solely responsible (1).
Sentence 2 sets out the framing, and sentence 4 explains its appeal and its blind spot. Sentence 3's "this" intensifies the point, and sentence 1 shows who bears the burden.
TopicDecay of artworks in museums
AsksSummary of a paragraph on artworks decaying in museums.
Correct option: Artworks are not timeless; they decay from within, and conservation can only slow it.
D matches the central claim. The closest option treats the works as timeless treasures museums can guard, which the passage denies.
TopicThe environmental crisis
AsksArrange four sentences on fixing the environmental crisis.
Logic: Debate focuses on emissions, but biodiversity loss has many causes (2) → no single technical fix covers them (1) → "evidently" political fixes are needed (4) → "this" requires laws for future generations and nature (3).
Sentence 2 diagnoses the narrow focus, and sentence 1 lists the varied causes. Sentence 4 draws the conclusion, and sentence 3's "this" spells out what it requires.
TopicBig data and freedom
AsksSummary of a paragraph on big data and freedom.
Correct option: Easy access to personal data has reopened old debates about freedom and privacy.
B captures the central concern. The closest option narrows the passage to artificial intelligence, which it never mentions.
TopicA history of cheerfulness
AsksArrange four sentences on the history of the word "cheer".
Logic: Putting on a cheerful face changes the inner self (3) → the word comes from an Old French word for "face" (1) → medieval writers used it for expression and face (4) → Bible translations made it an abstract shared virtue (2).
Sentence 3 opens with the broad claim, and sentence 1 traces the word's root. Sentence 4 gives the medieval usage, and sentence 2 shows the later abstract meaning.
Q11–Q14 · 4 questions · Purpose of example, Inference, Detail, Main idea & summary
AsksWhy a stock exchange and a black market are both cited as market institutions.
Correct option: Formal and informal institutions can coexist in the same domain.
The pair illustrates the passage's point that institutions come in formal and informal kinds, often mixed. The example isn't about what is traded, or about one depending on the other.
AsksWhich inference is true (all the others are false).
Correct option: Natural languages arise from human activity without anyone designing them.
The passage describes languages as products of human action but not of human design. It says institutions like the family and the military are consciously shaped, so the option denying that is false.
AsksWhich two things the first paragraph treats as overlapping but distinct.
Correct option: Academic disciplines and institutions.
The opening describes the social sciences both as fields of thought and as social institutions, with disciplines given as a kind of institution, so the two overlap without being identical. (This key is debated: some solvers prefer the option naming the field-of-thought versus institution framing directly.)
AsksThe statement that best captures the passage.
Correct option: Institutions are structures that coordinate individuals' actions.
The passage builds on this definition through formal and informal kinds, culture as a subset and language as an institutional tool. One option describes only the conventional view the author rejects, and another overstates language as the sole fundamental institution.
Q15–Q18 · 4 questions · Inference, Except / NOT
AsksWhose camouflage would differ most from the octopus's.
Correct option: Sea snails.
Squid, cuttlefish and even polar bears are tied to camouflage methods resembling the octopus's (texture change, light scattering). Sea snails are linked to none of them.
AsksWhich is NOT a reason octopuses are "misfits" among molluscs.
Correct option: Being eaten by humans and other animals.
Lacking a shell, greater intelligence and many arms set octopuses apart from other molluscs. Being preyed upon is shared with relatives, not a difference.
AsksWhich claim about cephalopod camouflage is NOT supported by the passage.
Correct option: That they copy their predators' colours.
The passage explains colour matching through pigment and reflective cells and also describes texture changes. It never says they mimic predators.
AsksWhich change would NOT weaken cephalopods' camouflage.
Correct option: A particular ratio of pigment cells to reflector cells.
Pigment cells are one of several independent colour mechanisms, so their proportion alone doesn't impair blending in. Blocking the muscles that open pigment sacs would weaken camouflage.
TopicEgalitarian ancient cities
AsksSummary of a paragraph on egalitarian ancient cities.
Correct option: Some ancient cities had egalitarian urban life with little hierarchy, so cities don't require rulers.
D keeps "some" and the broader point. The closest option overgeneralises to all ancient cities.
TopicThe revival of ghee
AsksWhere a sentence on the pandemic accelerating the return to ghee fits.
Logic: Blank 3.
The sentence's "he" needs the speaker introduced first, which happens just before blank 3, where his interest is tied to a return to basics. It then leads into the following point about slow, mindful eating.
Q21–Q24 · 4 questions · Main idea & summary, Word / phrase in context, Inference, Strengthen / weaken
AsksThe set of terms that best captures the passage.
Correct option: Humans, musicking, linguistic capacities, symbol-making, modern humanity.
C covers music-making as a shared human trait, its links to language and symbolic thought, and its place in modernity. The other sets lean on incidental words or leave out musicking or language.
AsksWhat the author means by asking readers to look past the qualifications on the claim that humans make music.
Correct option: The caveats may have some merit, but the core claim stands: everyone who perceives music takes part in making it.
The author sets the caveats aside without rejecting them entirely and keeps the central claim. Reading the caveats as the author's own emphasis gets it backwards.
AsksWhat follows about when musical capacities emerged.
Correct option: People 20,000 years ago probably had musical abilities much like ours.
The passage says going back that far reaches people whose musical capacities were little different from ours. The option on who counts as a music-maker doesn't address emergence.
AsksWhat would undermine the claim that all humans are music-making creatures.
Correct option: That musical capacities are mainly shaped by culture and vary widely.
If the capacity were mainly cultural, it would not be a shared human trait. Whether dispositions are conscious or not leaves their universality untouched.
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