XAT 2020 Question Paper | Verbal Ability and Logical Reasoning

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Question 2 : Carefully read the paragraph below:
__________, medicine has been operated by trial and error, in other words, __________. We know by now that there can be entirely_________ connections between symptoms and treatment, and some medications succeed in medical trials for mere random reasons.
From the options below, choose the one that MOST appropriately fills up the blanks.

1. Formerly, randomly, accidental
2. Periodically, logically, arbitrary
3. Traditionally, analytically, casual
4. Historically, arbitrarily, fortuitous
5. Initially, statistically, unexpected

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Explanatory Answer

In the given passage with blanks, the phrase trial and error hints us that the process has been done randomly and not with logical reasoning. So going by this, the best option for the second blank can be ‘randomly’ or ‘arbitrarily’. So we come down to two options, Choice A or Choice D. Now let us consider the first blank. Even though the options ‘historically’ and ‘formerly’ both denote to what happened in the past, ‘formerly’, is always used in a sentence with a past tense word, while ‘historically’ is used with a present tense word. Since the first blank is followed by ‘has been’, the right word to be used for the first blank is ‘historically’.

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Choice D is the correct answer.