CAT 2023 Slot 1 — VARC Question 17
here is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: The discovery helps to explain archeological similarities between the Paleolithic peoples of China, Japan, and the Americas.
Paragraph: The researchers also uncovered an unexpected genetic link between Native Americans and Japanese people. ___(1)___. During the deglaciation period, another group branched out from northern coastal China and travelled to Japan. ___(2)___. "We were surprised to find that this ancestral source also contributed to the Japanese gene pool, especially the indigenous Ainus," says Li. ___(3)___. They shared similarities in how they crafted stemmed projectile points for arrowheads and spears. ___(4)___. "This suggests that the Pleistocene connection among the Americas, China, and Japan was not confined to culture but also to genetics," says senior author Qing-Peng Kong, an evolutionary geneticist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Answer & solution
Option 3
- B
Option 2
- C
Option 1
- D
Option 4
Easy
This is a sentence-insertion task. The missing line is: "The discovery helps to explain archeological similarities between the Paleolithic peoples of China, Japan, and the Americas." It carries two anchors — a backward link ("The discovery", so something must just have been discovered) and a forward link ("archeological similarities", so the next line should illustrate those similarities). Find the gap that satisfies both.
Backward anchor — "The discovery". The clause just before gap (3) is the quotation: "We were surprised to find that this ancestral source also contributed to the Japanese gene pool…" That is precisely a discovery being reported, so "The discovery" refers straight back to it.
Forward anchor — "archeological similarities". The sentence immediately after gap (3) reads "They shared similarities in how they crafted stemmed projectile points for arrowheads and spears." Projectile points and spears are archeological evidence — exactly the "similarities" the inserted line promises. The link is airtight on both sides.
Rule out the others. Gaps (1) and (2) sit in the genetic-migration narrative (Native American–Japanese link, the deglaciation branch to Japan) — no "discovery" has yet been stated, and "archeological similarities" would interrupt the genetics thread. Gap (4) comes after the projectile-point detail, so the sentence's forward promise would have nothing left to introduce.
Option 3. Inserted at gap (3), the line is preceded by the genetic discovery it refers to and is followed by the archeological similarities (projectile points and spears) it sets up.