The question below has six sentences of a paragraph with the first and the…

2024

The question below has six sentences of a paragraph with the first and the last sentence being in the correct place. Rearrange the four sentences A,B,C,D in order to form a coherent paragraph.

1. The concept of a ‘nation-state’ assumes a complete correspondence between the boundaries of the nation and the boundaries of those who live in a specific state

A. Then there are members of national collectivities who live in other countries, making a mockery of the concept.

B. There are always people living in particular states who are not considered to be (and often do not consider themselves to be) members of the hegemonic nation.

C. Even worse, there are nations which never had a state or which are divided across several states.

D. This, of course has been subject to severe criticism and is virtually everywhere a fiction.

6. However, the fiction has been, and continues to be, at the basis of nationalist ideologies.

  1. A.

    DBAC

  2. B.

    ABCD

  3. C.

    BACD

  4. D.

    DACB

Attempted by 1 students.

Show answer & explanation

Correct answer: A

Concept:

For a sentence-rearrangement (para-jumble) item, each movable sentence carries a linking cue — a pronoun or demonstrative ('this', 'the concept'), a sequencing word ('then', 'even worse', 'however'), or a logical relation — that only makes sense once its antecedent has already been stated. Solving the item means matching each cue to the one sentence that already supplies that antecedent, which fixes a single valid order between the given first and last lines.

Applying it to this passage:

  1. Sentence 1 states the assumption behind the term 'nation-state': that the boundaries of the nation and the boundaries of the state are assumed to coincide.

  2. D follows immediately after 1, because 'This, of course, has been subject to severe criticism and is virtually everywhere a fiction' can only be referring back to the assumption just stated in 1 — no other sentence has introduced anything yet for 'This' to point to.

  3. B comes next, giving the first concrete mismatch: people living in a state who are not treated as (and do not consider themselves to be) members of the dominant nation.

  4. A follows with 'Then', a continuation word that needs a mismatch example already on the table — exactly what B supplies — and adds a second mismatch: members of a national group living in other countries.

  5. C escalates with 'Even worse', which needs two prior examples to escalate past — satisfied only once B and A have both been stated — introducing nations that never had a state, or that are split across several states.

  6. 6 then closes with 'However', contrasting against the strongest point just made in C: despite all these mismatches, the fiction persists as the basis of nationalist ideology.

Cross-check:

  • D's 'This' has only sentence 1 as a possible antecedent, so D must follow 1 directly.

  • A's 'Then' needs a mismatch example already stated — available only once B precedes it.

  • C's 'Even worse' needs two escalatable examples already in place — available only once B and A precede it.

  • 6's 'However' needs the strongest, most negative point just made — available only once C precedes it.

Every one of these four checks is satisfied only by the order D-B-A-C, so the passage reads 1-D-B-A-C-6.

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