CAT 2026 · Slot 3 · Expected paper
CAT 2026 Slot 3 VARC Analysis: Expected Paper, Questions & Solutions
- 24 questions
- 22 MCQ
- 2 TITA
- 72 marks
- 15 medium
- 8 easy
- 1 hard
VARC is split into 5 parts: RC Passage 1 (4), RC Passage 2 (4), RC Passage 3 (4), RC Passage 4 (4), Verbal Ability (8). Open a part for every question with options, answers and solutions, or a single question on its own page.
Reading Comprehension Passage 1: Reading Comprehension – Cultural Property / Patrimony Laws
- Q1From the passage we can infer that the author is likely to advise poor, but archaeologically-rich source countries to do all of the following, EXCEPT:
- Q2It can be inferred from the passage that archaeological sites are considered important by some source countries because they:
- Q3Which one of the following statements, if true, would undermine the central idea of the passage?
- Q4Which one of the following statements best expresses the paradox of patrimony laws?
Reading Comprehension Passage 2: Reading Comprehension – Classical Aesthetics
- Q5According to the classicists, aesthetics:
- Q6Which one of the following statements is NOT supported by the passage?
- Q7The main difficulty in studying classicism is the:
- Q8According to the passage, recent studies on classicism avoid “a single definition, a specific time, or a specific place” because they:
Reading Comprehension Passage 3: Reading Comprehension – Chameleon Camouflage
- Q17Which one of the following statements is NOT supported by the passage about the camouflaging ability of chameleons?
- Q18Which one of the following lizards is explicitly described as sharing two camouflage-related mechanisms with chameleons?
- Q19All of the following, if true, would weaken the camouflaging ability described in the passage EXCEPT:
- Q20According to the passage, which of the following most directly explains why chameleons benefit from specialised skin protection?
Reading Comprehension Passage 4: Reading Comprehension – Artmaking and Human Cognition
- Q21Which one of the following, if true, would most directly challenge the author’s argument that artmaking is a fundamental shared human capacity?
- Q22What does the author mean by asking readers to “think beyond all the qualifications” that might follow the statement “Humans today make art”?
- Q23Which one of the following statements is best supported by the passage?
- Q24Which one of the following sets of terms best captures the central concerns of the passage?
Verbal Ability Questions
- Q9Sentences:
1. One important part of that debate concerns control over personal information, which technological and legal changes have made increasingly consequential.
2. This control can be understood as privacy over data: the ability to shape who accesses personal information and how it is used.
3. Requiring consent before data collection is one practical way of giving individuals this ability.
4. Commercial database systems are often redesigned to reduce storage costs and make search queries run faster.
5. Privacy is a complex and contested legal notion, and resolving every debate about it lies beyond the present discussion.
Q9. Four sentences form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd sentence and enter its number. - Q10Sentences:
1. Imperial monuments could advertise a ruler’s military victories and political authority to distant provinces.
2. One proposed example of such a multisensory experience is a covered walkway whose paired arches reflect sounds towards one another.
3. Some architectural historians argue that people experience built spaces through sound and touch as well as sight.
4. That reflection of footsteps and voices would turn the walkway into a sensory corridor, directing attention to features visitors might otherwise overlook.
5. For this acoustic effect to work, the arches would need to be positioned so that sounds from people beneath them reached the opposing surfaces.
Q10. Four sentences form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd sentence and enter its number. - Q11Sentence to be inserted: “Every step of our work follows an ancestral technique from Ghana,” Kwame stresses.
Paragraph:
The brothers honour the ways their grandfather wove and repaired cloth. (1) ______. He illustrates his point by describing how they make a ceremonial kente. They prepare the fibre, weave the strips on a single loom and use hand tools rather than modern power looms. (2) ______. Their workshop has a two-year waitlist for cloths that take weeks to create. (3) ______. The family’s craftsmanship has attracted distinguished patrons who own cloths made by all three generations. (4) ______. Both brothers entered the family trade as children.
Q11. Where should the given sentence be inserted? - Q12Sentence to be inserted: For centuries, bronze has been, and remains, a crucial material in the display of status visible in civic squares, temples, palaces and public monuments.
Paragraph:
(1) ______. Curator Helena Marsh put it bluntly in suggesting that stainless steel and outdoor lighting eroded this function. As she explained to the author, 'Bronze, when lit by gaslight, glows with warmth and almost breathes before the eyes, but under modern floodlights it becomes cold and inert.' (2) ______. Civic and economic shifts may have worked against the market, but the London bronze trade remained prosperous, thanks to the patronage of municipalities seeking grand public sculpture at the top end, and the buyers of 'decorative pieces', like candlesticks and door handles and 'ornaments', at the bottom. (3) ______. Another factor that came into play was the systematic collection building of certain American museums over the period. Philadelphia, the Frick Collection and Monticello, among others, were largely supplied by London foundries. (4) ______.
Q12. Where should the given sentence be inserted? - Q13Sentences:
1. It can be embedded in schools, hospitals, factories and prisons, adjusting relations of visibility to the activities monitored in each setting.
2. Having defined the layout in this way, we can now consider how it operates across different institutions.
3. A surveillance layout is a spatial arrangement that makes relationships of observation and control operate within an institution.
4. In short, these applications allow control to work from within an institution’s ordinary activities rather than as a separate external barrier.
Q13. Arrange the sentences into a coherent paragraph. - Q14Sentences:
1. But man, woman or otherwise, there is no denying that the quality of our life and character will be significantly shaped by the way we handle our grief.
2. Once the taboos have been broken, men usually experience letting their tears flow as intensely liberating.
3. Though this might seem a stereotype, men—unlike women, who are frequently applauded for open emotional expression—are often socialized to keep a lid on their sorrow.
4. Many of them are so at odds with their grieving feelings that, as a counsellor, I often have to stop them from choking back their sobs and encourage them to open up so their tears might actually reach their grieving hearts.
Q14. Arrange the sentences to form a coherent paragraph. - Q15Passage:
In the dynamic realm of heritage, curators often find themselves at the crossroads between drawing from diverse traditions and inadvertently crossing into the territory of cultural exploitation. Borrowing is the lifeblood of creativity, driving curators to create exhibits that resonate across borders. The globalised nature of the modern world invites museums to draw from a vast array of cultural influences. When approached respectfully, borrowing becomes a bridge, fostering understanding and appreciation of cultural diversity. However, the line between borrowing and exploitation can be thin and easily blurred. Cultural exploitation occurs when elements from a particular tradition are taken without proper understanding, respect, or acknowledgment. This leads to the commodification of sacred objects, the reinforcement of stereotypes, and the erasure of the cultural context from which these elements originated. It's essential to recognise that the impact of cultural exploitation extends beyond the realm of museum display, influencing public perceptions and perpetuating power imbalances.
Q15. Which of the following best summarises the passage? - Q16Passage:
Telomeres may contribute to age-related cellular decline: this finding could help scientists understand more about the ageing process and why cells lose their ability to replicate effectively as we get older. Telomeres are protective caps at the ends of chromosomes that shorten each time a cell divides. Scientists think that when telomeres become critically short, cells can no longer divide properly and enter a state of decline. In younger people, an enzyme called telomerase is more effective at rebuilding telomeres and maintaining their length, but as we age this process becomes less efficient. As a result, telomeres shorten progressively in different tissues of the body, either through increased cell division or reduced rebuilding by telomerase. The shortened telomeres continue to trigger damage signals though the cell does not divide, and often activate pathways that cause cellular stress, which if persistent for longer periods of time can impair healthy tissue leading to age-related diseases.
Q16. Which of the following best summarises the passage?
The full CAT 2026 Slot 3 mock on the real exam screen: VARC, DILR and Quant, 40 minutes each (120 minutes). It always opens the whole paper, whichever page you start from.
Start the timed mockFull paper — 68 questions (VARC 24 · DILR 22 · QA 22) with answers and solutions. A4, by Rav Singh.
An expected paper by Cetking, not the actual CAT paper. CAT is conducted by the IIMs.