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: Language, Arts & Literature; Philosophy, Psychology & Culture; History, Politics & Society.
Q1–Q4 · 4 questions · Except / NOT, Application & analogy
AsksWhich statement about Indian Ocean migration is NOT true.
Correct option: That the networks linked the global south to the global north.
The passage describes links among East Africa, the Arabian coast and South and East Asia, all within the south. The counter-intuitive claim that distant ports were easier to reach than nearby inland towns is actually supported.
AsksWhich pair relates its two items differently from the others.
Correct option: "Postcolonial novels – border-crossing": the passage assigns border-crossing to Indian Ocean novels instead.
The other pairs each match a literary tradition with a trait the passage gives it. The Indian Ocean novel and outward-looking pair is correct as stated, so it is not the odd one.
AsksWhich statement would NOT weaken the contrast between mainstream English fiction and Indian Ocean novels.
Correct option: That mainstream English novels typically centre white, Christian, male travellers.
D confirms that mainstream fiction comes from a different, Euro-centred viewpoint, so it strengthens the contrast. The other options cast doubt on it.
AsksWhich claim does NOT support the passage's "remapping" of the literary world.
Correct option: That cosmopolitanism started in the West and spread east.
The passage presents the Indian Ocean as an early, southern hub of connection, so a West-first story cuts against it. The claim that globalisation first appeared in the Indian Ocean directly supports the remapping.
TopicNaming numbers in English
AsksFive sentences on irregular number names in English.
Logic: 1 → 5 → 4 → 2: no consistent system above ten → a learner couldn't work names out → tens follow their own pattern → some names even reverse digit order.
The four sentences describe the patterns (and quirks) of English number words. Sentence 3 shifts to how children learn them, so it is the odd one.
TopicHistory of colonialism
AsksSummary of a paragraph on navigation and modern colonialism.
Correct option: Sixteenth-century navigation advances let Europeans settle and dominate distant lands, defining modern colonialism.
C keeps the passage's causal claim. The closest option mentions dispossession and global change but drops navigation-driven settlement and control.
TopicAI and bias
AsksArrange four sentences on bias in AI.
Logic: Human bias is local, AI's is wide (4) → algorithms now affect huge populations (1) → the bias is really in the data (2) → which makes it easier to fix (3).
Sentence 4 sets up the contrast, and sentence 1 expands on AI's reach. Sentence 2 locates the source in training data, and sentence 3's "despite" concedes the reach while noting the fix is easier.
TopicPhilosophy's unsettling effect
AsksWhere a sentence describing philosophy as a hard challenge to one's core beliefs fits.
Logic: Blank 2.
Blank 2 follows the point that outdated beliefs may need replacing, and the sentence sums up how hard that is before the "what's worse" point about philosophers offering no comfort. Blank 1 comes before the idea it would sum up.
Q9–Q12 · 4 questions · Inference, Purpose of example, Author's view & tone
AsksSahlins's main goal in writing his essay.
Correct option: To hold up a mirror to an acquisitive society, using peoples who chose non-materialist lives.
The essay rests on foragers who preferred leisure to accumulation, which critiques materialist economics. Inequality is a side point, and Galbraith is a reference, not a target.
AsksWhy the Hadza are mentioned.
Correct option: Their foraging life was a choice: they knew of farming and rejected it.
Living alongside farmers yet keeping their own way shows the choice was deliberate. The passage doesn't discuss their survival techniques or their influence on neighbours.
AsksWhy Galbraith's book on post-war affluence is mentioned.
Correct option: Its critique of consumerism and inequality complements Sahlins's essay.
The passage pairs the two as kindred critiques. Nothing suggests that Galbraith refutes Sahlins.
AsksWhat the author criticises in Sahlins's essay.
Correct option: Its thin treatment of colonialism and racism by today's standards.
The author notes that the essay doesn't foreground these themes as we would now. The point about treating foragers as stand-ins for ancient humans is a separate observation.
Q13–Q16 · 4 questions · Except / NOT, Purpose of example
AsksWhich is NOT one of the author's reasons why non-geographers ignore geographic causes.
Correct option: Simply dismissing geographic explanations, which is the behaviour itself, not a reason for it.
The passage gives three reasons: a racist past of geographic arguments, historians' focus on chance and individual choice, and scholars' lack of geographic training. D restates the very disregard being explained.
AsksWhich criticism of non-geographer scholars the author does NOT make.
Correct option: That they hold outdated views of past events.
The author faults them for brushing aside biogeographic factors, over-weighting individual decisions and chance, and branding geographic explanations as "determinism". Outdated views of history are never mentioned.
AsksWhich statement cannot be inferred from the passage.
Correct option: That most human phenomena stem from culture and choice, with only some rooted in geography.
The passage says both kinds of factors matter but never ranks their overall weight. The Inuit example (fur clothing reflecting geography, not a leader's choice) supports the other options.
AsksWhy the Inuit and Aboriginal Australians are mentioned.
Correct option: To show physical conditions directly shaping behaviour and culture.
Warm clothing in the Arctic and the absence of farming in Australia are traced to environment, not culture or chance. The option framing them as a comparison of development paths misses that purpose.
TopicManipulating information
AsksSummary of a paragraph on the manipulation of information.
Correct option: Spreading misinformation for power is ancient, but technology and social networks have amplified it to an unprecedented scale.
C keeps both the historical continuity and the modern technological driver. The closest option notes the long history but drops today's unprecedented, tech-fuelled scale.
TopicTheory of mind
AsksFive sentences on the human ability to read others' minds.
Logic: 5 → 4 → 1 → 3: the remarkable skill → it develops from infancy → why it matters → its uncertain evolutionary origin.
The four sentences explain the capacity itself. Sentence 2 is an aside about what the capacity is called and its role in thinking skills, which interrupts the account, so it is the odd one.
Q19–Q22 · 4 questions · Except / NOT, Strengthen / weaken, Inference
AsksWhich factor did NOT contribute to the return of wolves in Lozère.
Correct option: The closing of the old wolf-hunters' office.
Depopulation, spreading forests and legal protection all gave wolves room to recover. The hunters' office had finished its work decades earlier, so its closure cannot explain the later comeback.
AsksWhich problem Lozère's residents do NOT have to deal with.
Correct option: A falling number of hunting licences.
Mayors complain of closed schools and poor connectivity, and farmers lose livestock to wolves. The decline in hunting appears only as a cause of wolf recovery, not as a local hardship.
AsksWhich statement, if true, would undermine the author's claims.
Correct option: Rising wolf attacks on tourists.
The author presents wolf tourism as an economic benefit, which attacks on visitors would undercut. The other options support the author, concern unemployment generally, or are irrelevant.
AsksWhich two opposing groups the author's economic remedy tries to reconcile.
Correct option: Farmers who lose livestock and environmentalists who welcome the wolves.
Wolf-themed tourism would bring income to offset farmers' losses while keeping the predators that environmentalists celebrate. Politicians and tourists are not sides in the conflict.
TopicA Palaeolithic genetic link
AsksWhere a sentence saying the genetic finding explains shared archaeological traits across China, Japan and the Americas fits.
Logic: Blank 3.
Blank 3 comes after the scientists' surprise at the Japanese genetic link and before the description of the groups making matching stemmed stone points, so the sentence sets up that archaeological detail. Earlier blanks come before the genetic links are fully described.
TopicUnsolved crimes
AsksArrange four sentences on why some unsolved crimes fascinate us.
Logic: Why are some cases endlessly revisited (4) → what makes a case appealing (1) → cruelty or mystery (2) → unsolved cases offer something ordinary murders lack (3).
Sentence 4 poses the central question and sentence 1 narrows it. Sentence 2's "it" answers with possible features, and sentence 3 generalises to close.
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