In this guide
Sentence placement looks like the gentlest question in verbal ability. You are given a sentence and a paragraph with four marked gaps, and you pick the gap. Yet candidates lose these regularly, usually because they find a gap where the sentence fits the line before it and stop checking. A sentence has two neighbours. It has to fit both.
This guide covers how these questions are asked, the clues that decide them, a two-sided test that catches most traps, three worked questions and a practice set.
How it is asked
Sentence placement. A short paragraph has four numbered blanks. You are told a sentence is missing and asked in which blank it fits best. The options are the four blanks.
Paragraph completion. A paragraph ends with a blank, and you choose the sentence that best completes it from four options. This format appeared in older CAT papers and still turns up in mocks and other MBA entrance tests.
Both types are about the same skill as para jumbles: reading how sentences link to each other rather than what each says alone.
The clues that decide the gap
| Clue in the missing sentence | What it needs before it | What it usually needs after it |
|---|---|---|
| "This", "these", "such", "that" + noun | The noun or idea it points to | A continuation of the same idea |
| "However", "yet", "but" | A claim to contrast with | Development of the new direction |
| "Also", "moreover", "further" | A point of the same kind | Either more support or a turn |
| "Therefore", "as a result", "so" | The cause or premise | Often the end of the paragraph, or a consequence |
| "For example", "consider" | A general claim | The example's details, or a return to the claim |
| "In other words", "put simply" | The idea being restated | Often nothing: it closes the point |
| A new term defined ("X is called Y") | The thing being named | Later uses of the name |
Also read the sentences around each gap for clues pointing at the missing sentence. If the line after a gap says "This explains why…", something explanatory must come right before it.
The two-sided fit test
For each gap you are considering, run the sentence through two checks.
- Backward fit. Read the sentence before the gap, then the missing sentence. Does every reference word in the missing sentence have something to point to? Does its connector make sense against that line?
- Forward fit. Read the missing sentence, then the sentence after the gap. Does the next line still follow? Does it now point back to the right thing?
A gap that passes only one check is a trap. The correct gap passes both, and removing the missing sentence from it usually leaves a small jolt in the paragraph that the sentence repairs.
Worked example 1: a reference word
Paragraph:
Solar power has grown rapidly over the past decade. [1] Panel prices have fallen sharply as manufacturing has scaled up. [2] Yet a cheaper panel does not solve the problem of timing, because demand peaks in the evening, just as output falls away. [3] Until storage becomes cheaper too, grids will need other sources to cover those hours. [4]
Missing sentence: "This fall in price has made solar competitive with coal and gas in many regions."
Solution.
- [1]: backward fit fails. No price fall has been mentioned yet.
- [2]: backward fit works: "this fall in price" points to "prices have fallen sharply". Forward fit works too: "Yet a cheaper panel does not solve…" now pushes back against the good news that solar is competitive. The contrast word finally has something to contrast.
- [3]: backward fit is weak, since the preceding line is about evening demand, not price. It also breaks the problem-solution link between the timing problem and storage.
- [4]: ends the paragraph on a positive note after its caveat, reversing its direction.
Answer: [2].
Worked example 2: a restatement
Paragraph:
[1] For a factory, productivity is easy to define: count the units that leave the floor each hour. [2] For work done with the mind, the count is harder to make. A consultant's most valuable hour may be the one spent deciding not to recommend something, and that hour produces nothing a counter can see. [3] Firms that measure knowledge work anyway tend to count what is visible: emails sent, hours logged, meetings attended. The result is that people learn to produce the visible signs of work, which are not the same thing as the work. [4]
Missing sentence: "Measurement, in other words, is not neutral: whatever is counted soon becomes what is done."
Solution. "In other words" restates an idea already made. Which idea? That what gets counted changes what people do. That idea is complete only in the last sentence, where people "learn to produce the visible signs of work".
- [1] and [2]: nothing has been measured yet.
- [3]: the preceding sentence says a valuable hour is invisible to counting. That is about what measurement misses, not about measurement changing behaviour. The restatement would be premature, and the next line would repeat it.
- [4]: backward fit is exact, and there is no forward line to break.
Answer: [4]. A restating or summarising sentence usually goes where the idea it restates has just been completed.
Worked example 3: paragraph completion
Many cities have raised fines for traffic offences in the hope of changing how people drive. Research on deterrence, however, has long suggested that the certainty of being caught matters more than the size of the penalty. A driver who expects to be stopped once in a thousand trips treats even a heavy fine as a distant risk. ____
(a) Cities should therefore abolish traffic fines altogether.
(b) A modest fine that is applied every time may change behaviour more than a large one that is rarely applied.
(c) Road safety lessons in schools have also been proposed as a way to reduce accidents.
(d) Heavier fines also bring in more revenue for city governments.
Answer: (b). The paragraph moves from a policy (bigger fines) to a finding (certainty beats severity) to an illustration (the driver who rarely expects to be caught). The ending should draw the implication for the policy, which (b) does.
- (a) goes far beyond the argument. Nothing says fines are useless, only that their size is not the main lever.
- (c) introduces a new topic. It could begin another paragraph, not end this one.
- (d) shifts the focus from behaviour to revenue.
Traps to expect
- Keyword echo. An option repeats nouns from the paragraph but changes the direction. Check the logic, not the vocabulary.
- The scope jump. A completion that is broader than the paragraph ("All punishment is ineffective") sounds like a conclusion but claims too much.
- The new idea. A true, relevant-sounding sentence that the paragraph has not prepared for.
- The orphaned pronoun. Placing a sentence so that the next line's "this" or "they" now points to the wrong thing.
- The obvious first gap. When the missing sentence has no reference word, candidates drop it into the first gap that looks roughly on topic. Test all four.
Practice set
Question 1. Coral reefs cover a tiny fraction of the ocean floor. [1] Yet they support a remarkable share of marine species. [2] When the water stays unusually warm for weeks, corals expel the algae that live in their tissue and supply most of their food. [3] Without those algae, the coral turns white and, if the heat persists, starves. [4] Reefs can recover from a single such event, but repeated events leave too little time between them.
Missing sentence: "Scientists call this loss of colour bleaching."
Question 2. A new vaccine passes through several stages of testing before approval. [1] Early trials involve a small number of volunteers and check mainly for safety. [2] Later trials enrol thousands of people, some of whom receive the vaccine and the rest a placebo. [3] Only when the difference between the two groups is too large to be put down to chance does a regulator consider approval. [4]
Missing sentence: "Neither the volunteers nor the doctors treating them know who received which."
Question 3. Offer people ₹1,000 today or ₹1,100 in a month, and many take the money now. Offer them ₹1,000 in a year or ₹1,100 in a year and a month, and most are happy to wait the extra month. In both cases the trade is the same: one more month for ₹100 more. ____
(a) This shows that most people are poor at arithmetic.
(b) What changes is only how near the first reward is, and nearness seems to weigh on our choices more heavily than the numbers say it should.
(c) Banks use this tendency to design their savings products.
(d) People should therefore always choose the larger reward.
Answers:
- [4]. "This loss of colour" needs "the coral turns white" directly before it. At [3] the colour change has not happened yet.
- [3]. "Who received which" needs the two groups (vaccine and placebo) just before it. At [4] the paragraph has already moved to approval.
- (b). It names what differs between the two choices and draws the paragraph's point. (a) misreads the example, (c) brings in a new topic, and (d) turns a description into advice.
What to do next
- For the next ten placement questions you practise, write "back" and "forward" next to each gap and tick both before choosing.
- Collect connector and reference words from your wrong answers into one list, and revise it weekly.
- Practise para summary alongside this; both reward knowing what a paragraph's point is.
- Review each error in your VARC mock analysis: was it a backward-fit or a forward-fit miss?
A note on dates and numbers. Exam patterns, vacancies and schedules change from year to year. Always confirm the current details in the latest notification on the Indian Institutes of Management website .
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