The given sentence is missing in the paragraph below. Decide where it best fits among the options 1, 2, 3, or 4 indicated in the paragraph.
Psycology Paragraph Completion CAT 2025 Slot 2 Actual Question: Hard
Sentence: While taste is related to judgment, with thinkers at the time often writing, for example, about “judgments of taste” or using the two terms interchangeably, taste retains a vital link to pleasure, embodiment, and personal specificity that is too often elided in post-Kantian ideas about judgment—a link that Arendt herself was working to restore.
Paragraph: ____(1) ____. Denneny focused on taste rather than judgment in order to highlight what he believed was a crucial but neglected historical change. ____(2) ____. Over the course of the seventeenth century and early eighteenth century, across Western Europe, the word taste took on a new extension of meaning, no longer referring specifically to gustatory sensation and the delights of the palate but becoming, for a time, one of the central categories for aesthetic—and ethical—thinking. ____(3) ____. Tracing the history of taste in Spanish, French, and British aesthetic theory, as Denneny did, also provides a means to recover the compelling and relevant writing of a set of thinkers who have been largely neglected by professional philosophy. ____(4) ____.
1. Option 3
2. Option 2
3. Option 1
4. Option 4
Answer
Correct Option: 1 (Option 3)
Rationale: The missing sentence contains the phrase “thinkers at the time,” which indicates a reference to a specific historical period mentioned immediately before. The sentence preceding blank 3 discusses “the course of the seventeenth century and early eighteenth century,” providing the necessary temporal antecedent for “at the time.” Thematically, the missing sentence elaborates on the specific nature of “taste” during that period—specifically its link to pleasure and embodiment—which clarifies why it was considered a central category for aesthetic and ethical thinking, as mentioned in the sentence ending at blank 3. Placing the sentence here provides a logical bridge to the following sentence, which discusses the value of recovering the “thinkers” who held these specific views.
Why other options wrong:
Option 2 (referring to blank 2) is incorrect because the historical time period (17th/18th century) is introduced in the sentence following this blank, so “at the time” would have no referent.
Option 3 (referring to blank 1) is incorrect for the same reason; the paragraph has just begun, and no time period has been established.
Option 4 (referring to blank 4) is incorrect because placing the sentence at the very end disrupts the flow. The sentence ending at blank 3 introduces the historical context, and it is most logical to immediately define the characteristics of thought during that time (the content of the missing sentence) before concluding with the sentence about recovering those specific neglected thinkers.
Difficulty: Moderate
Dhaka Muslin Paragraph Completion CAT 2025 Slot 2 Actual Question: Medium
The given sentence is missing in the paragraph below. Decide where it best fits among the options 1, 2, 3, or 4 indicated in the paragraph.
Sentence: While taste is related to judgment, with thinkers at the time often writing, for example, about “judgments of taste” or using the two terms interchangeably, taste retains a vital link to pleasure, embodiment, and personal specificity that is too often elided in post-Kantian ideas about judgment—a link that Arendt herself was working to restore.
Paragraph: ____(1) ____. Denneny focused on taste rather than judgment in order to highlight what he believed was a crucial but neglected historical change. ____(2) ____. Over the course of the seventeenth century and early eighteenth century, across Western Europe, the word taste took on a new extension of meaning, no longer referring specifically to gustatory sensation and the delights of the palate but becoming, for a time, one of the central categories for aesthetic—and ethical—thinking. ____(3) ____. Tracing the history of taste in Spanish, French, and British aesthetic theory, as Denneny did, also provides a means to recover the compelling and relevant writing of a set of thinkers who have been largely neglected by professional philosophy. ____(4) ____.
1. Option 3
2. Option 2
3. Option 1
4. Option 4
Answer
Correct Option: 1 (Option 3)
Rationale: The missing sentence contains the phrase “thinkers at the time,” which indicates a reference to a specific historical period mentioned immediately before. The sentence preceding blank 3 discusses “the course of the seventeenth century and early eighteenth century,” providing the necessary temporal antecedent for “at the time.” Thematically, the missing sentence elaborates on the specific nature of “taste” during that period—specifically its link to pleasure and embodiment—which clarifies why it was considered a central category for aesthetic and ethical thinking, as mentioned in the sentence ending at blank 3. Placing the sentence here provides a logical bridge to the following sentence, which discusses the value of recovering the “thinkers” who held these specific views.
Why other options wrong:
Option 2 (referring to blank 2) is incorrect because the historical time period (17th/18th century) is introduced in the sentence following this blank, so “at the time” would have no referent.
Option 3 (referring to blank 1) is incorrect for the same reason; the paragraph has just begun, and no time period has been established.
Option 4 (referring to blank 4) is incorrect because placing the sentence at the very end disrupts the flow. The sentence ending at blank 3 introduces the historical context, and it is most logical to immediately define the characteristics of thought during that time (the content of the missing sentence) before concluding with the sentence about recovering those specific neglected thinkers.
Difficulty: Moderate
