The question below consists of a set of labelled sentences. Out of the four…
2024
The question below consists of a set of labelled sentences. Out of the four options given, select the most logical order of the sentences to form a coherent paragraph.
P. As the Plains was settled and grassland converted for crops and grazing, fires were seen as a threat and extinguished.
Q. Historically, fires set by lightning burned naturally at regular intervals across the Great Plains.
R. Native Americans, who saw the benefits, periodically burned the prairie to improve grazing conditions for buffalo.
S. In the last 50 years, as woody plants began increasing and transforming the grassland into a shrub ecosystem, fire has returned to the Plains in the form of controlled burns.
Answer: D. QRPS — Concept A narrative para-jumble is held together by chronological cohesion. Sentences that carry an explicit time marker fix a timeline, and the finished…
- A.
SRQP
- B.
PSQR
- C.
RSQP
- D.
QRPS
Attempted by 38 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: D
Concept
A narrative para-jumble is held together by chronological cohesion. Sentences that carry an explicit time marker fix a timeline, and the finished paragraph must run from the earliest period to the latest. A sentence that carries a back-reference — a pronoun, or a word such as "benefits" or "returned" that presupposes something already stated — can never open the paragraph; it has to follow whichever sentence supplies what it refers to.
Applying it to these four sentences
First map each sentence to the period it describes.
Sentence | Time marker inside it | Stage of the story |
|---|---|---|
Q | "Historically ... at regular intervals" | Fire before any human management: lightning-set and natural |
R | "periodically burned the prairie ... for buffalo" | Deliberate burning by Native Americans, before settlement |
P | "As the Plains was settled ... converted for crops and grazing" | Settlement era: fire treated as a threat and put out |
S | "In the last 50 years" | Present day: fire deliberately brought back as controlled burns |
Q depends on no other sentence. It states the baseline condition — lightning fires burning naturally at regular intervals — so it is the opening sentence.
R has to follow Q, because "who saw the benefits" presupposes that fires and their effects have already been introduced, and Q is the sentence that introduces them.
P has to follow R, because treating fire as a threat and extinguishing it reverses the deliberate burning described in R, and a reversal can only be reported after the practice it reverses.
S has to come at the end, because "fire has returned to the Plains" presupposes a stretch of time when fire was absent, and P is the sentence that creates that absence.
Read in time order — natural fires, then Native American burning, then settlement-era suppression, then modern controlled burns — the sequence is Q → R → P → S.
Cross-check
Test the sequence against the three one-way dependencies it must satisfy.
"benefits" in R points back to the naturally occurring fires of Q, so Q comes before R.
The extinguishing in P undoes the burning practice of R, so R comes before P.
"returned" in S needs the gap in fire created by P, so P comes before S.
The two explicit chronology cues frame the whole paragraph: "Historically" marks its beginning and "In the last 50 years" marks its end.
The paragraph therefore reads Q → R → P → S.