Each of the following sentences is marked as P, Q, R, S. Arrange P, Q, R, S,…
2023
Each of the following sentences is marked as P, Q, R, S. Arrange P, Q, R, S, which stand for sentences, in a sequence such that they make a proper paragraph.
P. There were many speeches and my grandmother was garlanded by a girl from every class.
Q. There was a farewell ceremony on her last day at school.
R. My grandmother had taught in a girls’ high school since 1936.
S. In 1962, the year I turned ten, my grandmother retired upon reaching the age of 60.
Find out the proper sequence from the options below:
Answer: C. SRQP — ConceptA jumbled paragraph is rebuilt from the links the sentences themselves carry, not from a guess about which order sounds best, and those links are of…
- A.
QPSR
- B.
PQRS
- C.
SRQP
- D.
None of these
Attempted by 14 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: C
Concept
A jumbled paragraph is rebuilt from the links the sentences themselves carry, not from a guess about which order sounds best, and those links are of two different strengths. Two of them are absolute. An anaphoric pronoun (she, her, it) names nobody on its own, so it must appear after the full noun phrase it points back to. And an elaborating sentence — one that supplies the details of an event — must follow the sentence that first names that event. The third link is only a preference: the past perfect (had + past participle) presents its event as background to some past reference point, so a paragraph usually reads more smoothly when the simple-past sentence that fixes that point comes first. English does allow the background to be stated before its reference point, so tense ranks the surviving candidates rather than eliminating any of them. Settle the absolute links first, then use the preference to choose among whatever is left.
Applying the links to these four sentences
Anaphora (absolute). Q speaks of “her last day at school” and contains no noun naming that person, while P, R and S each name “my grandmother” in full. A paragraph therefore cannot open with Q: the pronoun “her” would have nothing earlier to point back to.
Elaboration (absolute). Q names the event — “a farewell ceremony” — and P supplies that ceremony’s content: “many speeches” and the garlanding “by a girl from every class”. P must therefore come after Q, never before it.
Tense (preference). R is the only past-perfect sentence — “my grandmother had taught in a girls’ high school since 1936” — and it reads as background to the dated event S states in the simple past: “In 1962 … my grandmother retired”. Nothing in English forbids R before S, but S before R is the smoother narrative order, and it is also how the passage this item is adapted from runs (Amitav Ghosh, The Shadow Lines, which gives the 1962 retirement first and the teaching-since-1936 background immediately after).
Putting these together: S fixes the dated reference point, R fills in the background, Q names the event, and P gives that event’s details — S – R – Q – P.
Cross-check against the sequences on offer
Sequence | Result of applying the links |
|---|---|
QPSR | Opens on Q, whose “her” has no earlier noun to point back to, so it breaks the absolute anaphora link. |
PQRS | Places P, the ceremony’s details, ahead of Q, the sentence that first names the ceremony, so it breaks the absolute elaboration link. |
SRQP | Keeps both absolute links intact and follows the tense preference and the source passage as well. |
None of these | Would apply only if every listed sequence broke one of the links; SRQP does not. |
The proper sequence is SRQP.