Start here · the first lesson of Missing opening sentence
Missing opening sentence
Para Completion · for IPMAT Indore, IPMAT Rohtak and JIPMAT
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The idea
Here the first sentence is missing. Indore set this in 2019 (flooding), 2022 (shopping habits), 2023 (river disputes) and 2024 (stolen tomatoes), so expect about one a year. There are two kinds:
- Topic sentence. The rest of the paragraph explains, illustrates or proves one general claim, and the blank is that claim. Clue words come after the blank: "for example", a list of causes, or a story that teaches a lesson.
- Reference anchor. The second sentence points back to something: "This happened after…", "Such shops…", "These were not the poorest households", "The answer, it turned out, was…". The opener must supply exactly that thing (an event, a kind of shop, a group, a question).
Textbook vs exam method
Textbook method
Read the paragraph, then choose the option that "introduces the topic best".
Exam method
- Read the sentence right after the blank, slowly. Circle any pointer: this, that, these, such, the answer, for example, also, yet, but.
- If there is a pointer, name what it needs. "This happened" needs an event. "The answer" needs a question. "For example" needs a general claim. "Such a view" needs a view. Reject every option that does not supply it.
- If there is no pointer, find the common thread. Ask what every remaining sentence is about. In 2019 every sentence is about infrastructure making floods worse, so the opener must be about infrastructure.
- Check the scope. The opener should be as wide as the paragraph: not one example (too narrow) and not a sweeping claim the paragraph never supports (too wide).
- Read the join aloud. Your option plus the second sentence must read naturally without a missing "also" or "another".