All 24 VARC questions in exam order, with the passage topic, what each question asks, the answer and the reasoning.
VA mix: 2 para summary, 2 para jumbles, 2 odd sentence out, 2 sentence placement. RC themes: Philosophy, Psychology & Culture; Technology & Society; History, Politics & Society.
TopicPhotography and elections
AsksArrange four sentences on the use of candidates' photographs in elections.
Logic: The practice (2) → how the image works (1) → its political effect (4) → the overall verdict (3).
Sentence 2 introduces the concrete practice and raises the question of how photographs persuade. Sentence 1 explains the personal bond the image creates, sentence 4 gives its political consequence, and sentence 3 ("inasmuch as") delivers the general judgement.
Q2–Q5 · 4 questions · Inference, Main idea & summary, Except / NOT
AsksWhy non-human beings show human emotions in tribal stories.
Correct option: Tribal imagination lets the boundaries between beings, time and space dissolve.
Stars, seas and animals sharing human feeling only makes sense if categories of being are porous in tribal storytelling. The option calling these stories self-consciously creative contradicts the passage's contrast with secular art.
AsksHow imagination differs from memory, per the passage.
Correct option: Imagination makes sense of space; memory makes sense of time.
The passage ties imagination to images that give meaning to space, and memory to linking moments across time. The option saying imagination must be cultivated contradicts the passage's view that it is an innate gift.
AsksWhy tribes worship ancestors.
Correct option: To gain mastery over time, having given up on dominating territory.
The passage links communion with ancestors to a drive to control time. The other options describe the objects used in worship, or reverse the point about territory.
AsksWhich option would NOT weaken the passage's claims about tribal imagination.
Correct option: Tribal stories including rituals for talking to the dead.
Such rituals fit the passage's account of trance-like, time-defying imagination, so they support it. The other options deny features the passage claims (everyday reality mixed into art, freedom from sequence, dream-like logic).
TopicLatinx terminology
AsksArrange four sentences on the term "Latinx".
Logic: Activists coined Latinx (4) → they changed it despite grammatical vs social gender (3) → one writer rejects it (1) → few people use it (2).
Sentence 4 ("more recently") introduces the new label, and sentence 3's "they" refers to the activists who coined it. Sentence 1 gives a personal rejection, and sentence 2 ends with how rarely the term is used.
TopicMusic and cognition
AsksFive sentences on music as a universal, demanding human activity.
Logic: 2 → 5 → 4 → 3: music is everywhere and brain-wide → among the most demanding activities → part of daily life everywhere → bound up with identity.
The four sentences describe music as universal and cognitively rich. Sentence 1 turns to scientific research on music and emotion, a different focus, so it is the odd one.
TopicShoppers returning to tailors
AsksSummary of a paragraph on Indian shoppers returning to tailors.
Correct option: Mindful shoppers are leaving uniform, wasteful fast fashion for custom-fit clothing at sensible prices.
B covers all three shifts: away from sameness, away from waste, toward custom fit. The closest option mentions fit and price but drops sameness and waste.
TopicMAOA gene and aggression
AsksWhere a sentence locating the males' defect on a region of the X chromosome fits.
Logic: Blank 3.
The sentence before blank 3 lists the behaviours seen, and the one after names the exact mutation in the MAOA gene, so the chromosome location bridges them. Blank 2 would separate the behaviour list from what is meant to follow it.
Q10–Q13 · 4 questions · Application & analogy, Main idea & summary, Inference, Except / NOT
AsksWhich option comes closest to contradicting utilitarianism.
Correct option: Prioritising the worst-off over total welfare.
Utilitarianism judges by total wellbeing, and favouring the least advantaged deliberately departs from that. The option labelled "deontological" still picks the highest total benefit, so it is utilitarian in effect.
AsksThe best summary of the passage.
Correct option: It weighs the appeal of an impartial AI moral judge against doubts that machines can grasp morality, using physics to show many formal theories coexisting.
C keeps both sides of the passage. The tempting option predicts convergence and preserved nuance, while the passage expects plurality and warns that codifying ethics loses nuance.
AsksWhat must hold for the ethics–physics comparison to be useful in practice.
Correct option: There must be a principled way to choose which ethical framework applies to a case.
Physics matches theories to domains, so an AI would likewise need a rule for picking its starting framework. The passage stresses that ethical theories diverge, so the option assuming they agree fails.
AsksWhich statement cannot reasonably be inferred from the passage.
Correct option: That formal reasoning will converge on one ethical system and make contextual judgement unnecessary.
The author treats ethical theories as plural and context as central, so D reverses the passage. The other statements follow from the physics–ethics parallel and the warnings about formalising ethics.
TopicOxygen production on the seafloor
AsksFive sentences on the discovery that seafloor nodules produce oxygen.
Logic: 5 → 2 → 4 → 1: nodules host life → they also make oxygen → that's surprising → because oxygen usually comes from sunlight-driven plankton.
The four sentences present a finding and why it is surprising. Sentence 3 describes the experimental method, which breaks the flow of the argument, so it is the odd one.
TopicMemory-beliefs and the past
AsksSummary of a paragraph on memory-beliefs and knowledge of the past.
Correct option: Remembering happens in the present and needs no real past, so knowledge of the past is logically independent of the past.
D states the central claim and its reason. The closest option only says a past isn't required, without the conclusion about logical independence.
TopicWealth and income inequality
AsksWhere a sentence saying productivity gains now mainly boost returns to wealth, not living standards, fits.
Logic: Blank 4.
The sentence before blank 4 says wages stagnated while capital income was deliberately boosted, and the missing sentence states the outcome of that trend. Blank 3 would break the link between "wealth depends on political choices" and the point that follows it.
Q17–Q20 · 4 questions · Inference, Except / NOT, Detail
AsksWhy the dispute over the 1982 draft forest act widened into a broader debate.
Correct option: The draft echoed the colonial 1878 Act, so critics turned on the whole framework of forest policy.
Because the draft repeated the old control-and-revenue approach, opposition to it became a critique of the system. The option naming a specific grievance explains why people opposed the act, not why the debate grew.
AsksWhich option would NOT weaken the passage's narrative about colonial forest policy.
Correct option: That foreign forestry experts disregarded indigenous rights.
That fact reinforces the author's point that colonial forestry sidelined forest dwellers. The other options shift blame to tribes, deny the novelty of colonial control, or remove the railway demand behind it.
AsksWhich claim does NOT describe both the 1878 Act and the 1982 draft.
Correct option: Association with large-scale deforestation: true only of the colonial era.
Heavy forest loss is tied to railway demand before 1878, while the 1982 draft was defended as a way to curb deforestation. State control over forest land, by contrast, runs through both.
AsksWhich reform has not yet happened in Indian forest policy.
Correct option: Handing degraded forest land to local communities for afforestation.
The passage says the state still keeps its monopoly over such land. Ecological steps, such as stopping clear-felling, have already been taken.
Q21–Q24 · 4 questions · Main idea & summary, Purpose of example, Word / phrase in context, Except / NOT
AsksThe set of terms that best tracks the passage's argument.
Correct option: Symbol of control → human and ecological costs → justification → continued building.
C follows the passage's sequence from dams as emblems of mastery to their "sacrifice zone" costs, their modernising justification and their continued spread. The other sets lean on minor details.
AsksWhy the author opens with famous mega-dams.
Correct option: The urge to dominate nature shows up both in famous dams and in countless small ones.
The famous dams make the mindset visible, before the passage turns to the many smaller barriers. The options about messianic employers or builders' charisma invent a focus the passage lacks.
AsksThe pair of terms closest to "instantiation" as used in the first paragraph.
Correct option: Exemplification and manifestation: an abstract idea given concrete form.
Dams are presented as the physical embodiment of a drive to master nature. "Viability" (feasibility) and "durability" (lastingness) miss that sense.
AsksWhich statement cannot be validly inferred from the passage.
Correct option: That smaller dams are safer than large ones.
The passage stresses the cumulative harm of small dams, never their safety. Continued building despite opposition, and the link to dispossession, are both supported.
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