Start here · the first lesson of Missing last sentence
Missing last sentence
Para Completion · for IPMAT Indore, IPMAT Rohtak and JIPMAT
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The idea
The last sentence is missing, and the answer must finish the paragraph in three ways at once:
- Logic (logical-close): it follows from what came before: a result, a lesson, what happened instead, or the open question that remains (Indore 2022: a two-script text lets scholars decode the Indus script; 2023: Correa avoided high-rises, so low-rise homes on a human scale).
- Scope (scope-match): it covers the whole paragraph, not one part (2021: herbivores help, predators harm → it depends on eating habits; 2024: the paragraph ends on a creativity debate, so the close must be about creativity, not ethics).
- Tone (tone-match): it keeps the paragraph's attitude and degree of certainty (2019: every cause is hedged, so the close adds one more possible cause, not "the main reason").
Textbook vs exam method
Textbook method
Choose the option that "best concludes the paragraph".
Exam method
- Summarise first. In 6-8 words: topic + direction + certainty. ("Arab Spring: several possible causes, all hedged.")
- Look hard at the last sentence. The close usually responds to it. "Yet it took fifty years" needs a comment on the delay; "avoided high-rise housing" needs what he did instead.
- Predict the kind of close. a result, a lesson, an open question, a balance of two sides, or one more item in a list.
- Eliminate. new topic → one side only → extreme words (only, proves, always, never, main) → tone flip → true but idle fact → a "To sum up" that does not sum up.
- Read the last two sentences together. with your choice.