CAT 2023 Slot 1 — VARC Question 18
There 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: This philosophical cut at one’s core beliefs, values, and way of life is difficult enough.
Paragraph: The experience of reading philosophy is often disquieting. When reading philosophy, the values around which one has heretofore organised one’s life may come to look provincial, flatly wrong, or even evil. ___(1)___. When beliefs previously held as truths are rendered implausible, new beliefs, values, and ways of living may be required. ___(2)___. What’s worse, philosophers admonish each other to remain unsutured until such time as a defensible new answer is revealed or constructed. Sometimes philosophical writing is even strictly critical in that it does not even attempt to provide an alternative after tearing down a cultural or conceptual citadel. ___(3)___. The reader of philosophy must be prepared for the possibility of this experience. While reading philosophy can help one clarify one’s values, and even make one self-conscious for the first time of the fact that there are good reasons for believing what one believes, it can also generate unremediated doubt that is difficult to live with. ___(4)___.
Answer & solution
- A
Option 1
- B
Option 3
- C
Option 4
Option 2
Easy
A sentence-insertion question. The missing line — "This philosophical cut at one's core beliefs, values, and way of life is difficult enough." — has two signals: "This philosophical cut" points back to something that has just wounded one's beliefs, and "is difficult enough" sets up a comparison ("…but something is even worse"). Match both.
Backward anchor — "This philosophical cut". The sentence just before gap (2) says "When beliefs previously held as truths are rendered implausible, new beliefs, values, and ways of living may be required." Having one's truths rendered implausible is the "cut at one's core beliefs, values, and way of life" — the phrasing even echoes "beliefs, values, and ways of living".
Forward anchor — "is difficult enough". The sentence right after gap (2) opens "What's worse, philosophers admonish each other to remain unsutured…" "What's worse" demands a prior statement that something was already bad. The inserted line supplies exactly that: this cut "is difficult enough" — and then what's worse follows.
Rule out the others. At gap (1) the "cut" hasn't been described yet (beliefs are only just starting to look wrong). Gaps (3) and (4) sit after the "what's worse" escalation, so the "is difficult enough → what's worse" pairing would be broken.
Option 2. The line slots into gap (2): it names the "cut" just described and is capped by the "What's worse…" escalation that immediately follows.