Paragraph: "Early histories of the printing press credited it with the spread of literacy, as though the machine had created its own readership. The sequence was closer to the reverse. Literacy in the Low Countries was already rising through the fifteenth century, driven by commercial record-keeping, and printers established themselves where a reading public and its money already existed. The press did not summon readers; it found them, and then multiplied what they could read." Which is the best summary?

The printing press spread to regions where literacy was already growing, so it multiplied rather than created a readership.

Commercial record-keeping in the Low Countries was the main cause of rising literacy in the fifteenth century.

Technology and society always shape each other, so single-cause histories of invention are unreliable.

The printing press had no effect on literacy rates in early modern Europe.

A paragraph argues that a widely praised policy produced small gains at high cost. Which summary option should be rejected on the ground of being OVERSTATED?

The policy was a failure and should be abandoned.

The policy’s benefits were modest relative to what it cost.

The policy was a failure and should be abandoned.

The policy achieved less than its supporters claimed.

The policy’s costs have been studied less carefully than its benefits.

In a para-summary question, two options differ only in that one says "because the soil was poor" and the other says "although the soil was poor". How should this be decided?

Find the paragraph’s own connective and check whether the soil supports the outcome or works against it

Pick the one that reads more naturally in English

Find the paragraph’s own connective and check whether the soil supports the outcome or works against it

Pick the longer option, since summaries need to be complete

Pick "although", since CAT usually tests contrast

Which sentence is most likely to be the odd one out in a four-sentence set?

A sentence stating a broad truth about the topic that the other three neither use nor develop

A sentence containing a pronoun that refers to something in another sentence

A sentence beginning "This meant that…"

A sentence stating a broad truth about the topic that the other three neither use nor develop

A sentence that repeats a noun from the first sentence

A para-summary question is a type-in (TITA) item with no negative marking. With sixty seconds left in the section and two options surviving, you should:

Enter the better of the two, since a wrong answer costs nothing

Leave it blank rather than risk a wrong answer

Enter the better of the two, since a wrong answer costs nothing

Re-read the paragraph a third time

Enter both answers separated by a slash

A paragraph ends: "… though the evidence for the third mechanism remains thin." Where is the paragraph’s main claim most likely to be?

In the sentence before it, since the ending only qualifies the claim

In that final clause, since the last sentence carries the conclusion

In the sentence before it, since the ending only qualifies the claim

In the first sentence, which always states the thesis

It cannot be located without the full passage

In an odd-sentence-out set, you find that sentences 2 and 4 must be adjacent because 4 begins "Such arrangements…". What does this tell you?

Neither 2 nor 4 is the odd sentence, and the answer is 1 or 3

Sentence 4 is the odd sentence, since it depends on another sentence

Sentence 2 is the odd sentence, since it is being referred back to

Nothing useful — adjacency is common to all four sentences

Para Summary and Odd Sentence Out

VARC has 24 questions, and about four of them are not reading comprehension: para summary, odd sentence out and para jumbles. In recent papers these arrive as type-in questions, where a wrong answer costs nothing — which makes leaving one blank the only genuinely bad outcome. That single fact should shape how you practise: the goal is not to be certain, it is to have a procedure that always produces an answer worth submitting. Both question types reward the same underlying skill, which is finding the paragraph's argumentative spine — the one claim everything else is serving. Once you can state that spine in your own words, a summary is the option that matches it and the odd sentence is the one that does not belong to it.

Find the Spine First

Before looking at any option, read the paragraph once and answer two questions out loud: what is being claimed, and what is the claim standing against? Almost every CAT paragraph has an opponent — a common belief, an earlier theory, an obvious assumption — and the paragraph exists to correct it. Naming the opponent is usually what separates the right summary from the plausible one.

Watch the connectives; they carry the argument. "But", "however", "yet" and "nevertheless" mark the turn, and after a turn the paragraph's real position is on the far side of it. "Because", "since" and "therefore" mark support, which is never the summary — support is what the summary can leave out.
Examples are never the point. A paragraph that spends three sentences on Venetian glassmakers is not about Venetian glassmakers; it is about whatever they illustrate. A summary option built around the example is the most common wrong answer, and it is attractive precisely because it is so recognisably from the paragraph.
The last sentence is often the spine, but not always. A paragraph that ends on a qualification ("though the evidence remains thin") has its spine one sentence earlier. Read the ending for whether it concludes or merely hedges.

Para Summary — Eliminating on Four Grounds

A summary must say what the paragraph says, at the paragraph's own strength, without adding anything. Four failure modes cover nearly every wrong option, and testing an option against them is faster than judging which option "feels closest".

The four grounds for rejecting a summary option
Failure	How to spot it
Too narrow — captures one part, usually the example	Everything in the option is in the paragraph, but half the paragraph is missing from the option
Too broad — a true generality the paragraph never argued	It would be an acceptable summary of a different paragraph on the same topic
Overstated — turns "may", "often" or "some" into "always" or "must"	Look for the absolute words; the paragraph almost never earns them
Reversed or added — states a cause, a solution or a value the paragraph did not	Ask "which sentence licenses this?" If none does, the option has added it

🧠 Write your own summary before reading the options

Ten words in the margin, in your own language. Then pick the option nearest to your sentence rather than nearest to the paragraph. This inverts the usual failure: options are written to sound like the paragraph, and comparing them to each other is exactly the comparison the paper-setter has prepared for.

Worked example. "Early histories of the printing press credited it with the spread of literacy, as though the machine had created its own readership. The sequence was closer to the reverse. Literacy rates in the Low Countries were already rising through the fifteenth century, driven by commercial record-keeping, and printers established themselves where a reading public and its money already existed. The press did not summon readers; it found them, and then multiplied what they could read." Spine: the press followed literacy rather than causing it. A too-narrow option would talk about commercial record-keeping in the Low Countries. A too-broad option would say technology and society influence each other. An overstated option would say the press had no effect on literacy — but the last sentence explicitly grants that it multiplied available reading. The correct summary says the press exploited a readership that already existed rather than creating one.

Odd Sentence Out — What "Belongs" Means

Four or five sentences are given; four of them form a coherent paragraph and one does not belong. The instruction is easy to misread: the odd sentence is usually on the same topic and often perfectly true. What makes it odd is that it does not do a job in the paragraph the others build.

Find the pair that must be adjacent. Two sentences usually lock together through a pronoun, a repeated noun or a connective ("This meant that…", "Such systems…"). That pair is the seed of the paragraph.
Grow the chain outward. Add whichever remaining sentence the pair needs before it or after it. Ask what each addition contributes: context, cause, consequence, contrast, example.
The sentence with no job is the answer. By this point one sentence has no position where it adds anything — it repeats a point already made, changes the level of generality, or answers a question the paragraph never asks.

⚠️ The odd sentence is rarely the false one

Candidates look for the sentence that is wrong. Paper-setters do not put a wrong sentence in — all five are usually true. Look for the one that is structurally homeless, not the one you disagree with. A very general opening claim and a very specific statistic are both common odd sentences precisely because they are unobjectionable.

Worked example. Consider four sentences.
(1) Municipal water tariffs in most Indian cities recover less than a third of the cost of supply.
(2) The shortfall is met from general revenue, which means the subsidy is invisible in the water bill and therefore in public debate.
(3) Invisible subsidies are politically durable, because no constituency experiences them as a benefit that could be withdrawn.
(4) Rainwater harvesting has been mandatory for new construction in several states since the mid-2000s. Sentences 1–3 form a chain: a fact, its mechanism, and its political consequence. Sentence 4 is true, is about urban water, and does nothing in that chain — it neither explains the subsidy nor follows from it. Answer: 4. Notice that it is the most concrete sentence of the four, which is what makes it feel like it belongs.

Never Leave One Blank

No negative marking means an unattempted question is strictly worse than a guess. With four options, even a blind guess is worth 0.75 marks on average and can cost nothing. If you have eliminated one option, that expectation rises to a mark.
Budget ninety seconds, then answer with what you have. These questions do not become clearer on a fourth reading; they become expensive. Take the best surviving option and move to the reading comprehension, where the marks are.
Two options that say almost the same thing usually contain the answer. Paper-setters build a near-miss beside the key, so the difference between those two is the point being tested. Find the word that differs — often a "because", a "some" or an "only" — and decide which the paragraph licenses.

Key takeaways

Read the paragraph for its spine — what is claimed, and what the claim stands against — before looking at a single option.
Write your own ten-word summary in the margin, then pick the option closest to your sentence rather than closest to the paragraph.
Examples are never the summary. An option built around the paragraph’s illustration is the most common wrong answer.
Reject any option that turns "may" or "often" into "always". The paragraph almost never earns an absolute.
The odd sentence is usually true and on topic. Look for the sentence with no structural job, not the one you disagree with.
Build the chain from the pair that must be adjacent — linked by a pronoun, a repeated noun or a connective — and grow outward.
These are type-in questions with no negative marking. Ninety seconds, then submit your best surviving option — a blank is the only losing answer.

Practice questions (8)

Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.

Paragraph: "Early histories of the printing press credited it with the spread of literacy, as though the machine had created its own readership. The sequence was closer to the reverse. Literacy in the Low Countries was already rising through the fifteenth century, driven by commercial record-keeping, and printers established themselves where a reading public and its money already existed. The press did not summon readers; it found them, and then multiplied what they could read." Which is the best summary?
1. The printing press spread to regions where literacy was already growing, so it multiplied rather than created a readership.
2. Commercial record-keeping in the Low Countries was the main cause of rising literacy in the fifteenth century.
3. Technology and society always shape each other, so single-cause histories of invention are unreliable.
4. The printing press had no effect on literacy rates in early modern Europe.
Show answer
Answer: A — The printing press spread to regions where literacy was already growing, so it multiplied rather than created a readership.
Option A carries both halves of the spine: the press followed existing literacy, and it multiplied reading rather than creating readers. Option B is too narrow — record-keeping is a supporting detail inside one sentence. Option C is too broad: true, and a summary of a different paragraph; nothing here argues about single-cause histories in general. Option D is overstated and contradicted — the final clause explicitly grants that the press multiplied what people could read.
Four sentences are given. Which does NOT belong?
(1) Municipal water tariffs in most Indian cities recover less than a third of the cost of supply.
(2) The shortfall is met from general revenue, so the subsidy never appears on a water bill.
(3) Subsidies that are invisible are politically durable, because no group experiences them as a benefit that could be withdrawn.
(4) Rainwater harvesting has been mandatory for new construction in several states since the mid-2000s.
1. Sentence 1
2. Sentence 2
3. Sentence 3
4. Sentence 4
Show answer
Answer: D — Sentence 4
Sentences 1, 2 and 3 form a chain — a fact, the mechanism that hides it, and the political consequence of it being hidden. Sentence 4 is true and is about urban water, but it neither explains the subsidy nor follows from it; the paragraph is about pricing and its politics, not about conservation rules. Note that sentence 4 is the most concrete of the four, which is exactly what makes it feel as though it belongs.
A paragraph argues that a widely praised policy produced small gains at high cost. Which summary option should be rejected on the ground of being OVERSTATED?
1. The policy’s benefits were modest relative to what it cost.
2. The policy was a failure and should be abandoned.
3. The policy achieved less than its supporters claimed.
4. The policy’s costs have been studied less carefully than its benefits.
Show answer
Answer: B — The policy was a failure and should be abandoned.
"Small gains at high cost" is an assessment; "was a failure and should be abandoned" is a verdict plus a recommendation, and neither was made. That is the overstatement — option B upgrades a measured claim into an absolute one and adds a prescription. Options A and C restate the claim at its own strength. Option D is a different kind of wrong: it adds a claim about the research, which is an addition rather than an overstatement — worth separating, because the four grounds are diagnostic, not interchangeable.
In a para-summary question, two options differ only in that one says "because the soil was poor" and the other says "although the soil was poor". How should this be decided?
1. Pick the one that reads more naturally in English
2. Find the paragraph’s own connective and check whether the soil supports the outcome or works against it
3. Pick the longer option, since summaries need to be complete
4. Pick "although", since CAT usually tests contrast
Show answer
Answer: B — Find the paragraph’s own connective and check whether the soil supports the outcome or works against it
The two words describe opposite logical relations, and a paragraph always signals which one it means — through its own connective, or through the direction of its argument. Deciding it from the paragraph takes fifteen seconds and is the only reliable route. Options A, C and D are guessing heuristics dressed up as reasoning, and a near-miss pair like this is built precisely to reward reading over instinct.
Which sentence is most likely to be the odd one out in a four-sentence set?
1. A sentence containing a pronoun that refers to something in another sentence
2. A sentence beginning "This meant that…"
3. A sentence stating a broad truth about the topic that the other three neither use nor develop
4. A sentence that repeats a noun from the first sentence
Show answer
Answer: C — A sentence stating a broad truth about the topic that the other three neither use nor develop
Pronouns, "this meant that" and repeated nouns are all links — they tie a sentence to its neighbours and are therefore evidence of belonging. A broad truth that nothing else uses has no link and no job: it is on topic, it is unobjectionable, and removing it costs the paragraph nothing. That combination is the signature of the odd sentence.
A para-summary question is a type-in (TITA) item with no negative marking. With sixty seconds left in the section and two options surviving, you should:
1. Leave it blank rather than risk a wrong answer
2. Enter the better of the two, since a wrong answer costs nothing
3. Re-read the paragraph a third time
4. Enter both answers separated by a slash
Show answer
Answer: B — Enter the better of the two, since a wrong answer costs nothing
With no penalty, a fifty-fifty guess has an expected value of half the marks and a downside of zero — a blank has an expected value of zero, so leaving it is strictly worse. Re-reading a third time rarely resolves a two-option split and costs the seconds another question needs. Option D would simply be marked wrong: a type-in field accepts one answer, and an unparseable entry is no better than a blank.
A paragraph ends: "… though the evidence for the third mechanism remains thin." Where is the paragraph’s main claim most likely to be?
1. In that final clause, since the last sentence carries the conclusion
2. In the sentence before it, since the ending only qualifies the claim
3. In the first sentence, which always states the thesis
4. It cannot be located without the full passage
Show answer
Answer: B — In the sentence before it, since the ending only qualifies the claim
"Though" marks a concession, and a concession is not a conclusion — it protects a claim made just before it by admitting a limit. So the spine sits in the preceding sentence. Option A applies the "last sentence is the conclusion" rule mechanically, which is exactly the habit this construction is written to punish. Option C is unreliable: CAT paragraphs frequently open with the view they are about to reject.
In an odd-sentence-out set, you find that sentences 2 and 4 must be adjacent because 4 begins "Such arrangements…". What does this tell you?
1. Neither 2 nor 4 is the odd sentence, and the answer is 1 or 3
2. Sentence 4 is the odd sentence, since it depends on another sentence
3. Sentence 2 is the odd sentence, since it is being referred back to
4. Nothing useful — adjacency is common to all four sentences
Show answer
Answer: A — Neither 2 nor 4 is the odd sentence, and the answer is 1 or 3
A backward reference like "Such arrangements" proves that 4 needs 2 and that 2 supplies something 4 uses — so both are inside the paragraph, and the odd sentence must be one of the remaining two. This is why the method starts by finding the locked pair: each link established removes candidates, and on a four-sentence set one link cuts the field in half.