Sentences of a paragraph are given below. While the first and the last…
2025
Sentences of a paragraph are given below. While the first and the last sentences (1 and 6) are in the correct order, the sentences in between are jumbled up. Arrange the sentences in the correct order to form a meaningful and coherent paragraph.
1. Edison was an inventor of great ability.
S. In the other, he pinned the bills owed to him.
P. But he had two big books in his office.
Q. In one of them, he stuck the bills he owed.
R. He did not keep account books.
6. But he was not a very good businessman.
Answer: C. RPQS — ConceptSentence-rearrangement (para-jumble) items test whether you can restore a paragraph's cohesion — the connectives (such as 'but', 'however',…
- A.
SRPQ
- B.
SRQP
- C.
RPQS
- D.
PQRS
Attempted by 4 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: C
Concept
Sentence-rearrangement (para-jumble) items test whether you can restore a paragraph's cohesion — the connectives (such as 'but', 'however', 'therefore'), pronouns, and referring phrases like 'one'/'the other' that chain one sentence to the next. The sentences given as fixed (here, 1 and 6) anchor the passage, and the correct order is the one where every connective finds the statement it responds to and every referring phrase finds the item it points back to.
Application
Sentence 1 introduces Edison as an inventor of great ability, and the fixed final sentence 6 opens with 'But', so it must contrast with whatever situation the last of the middle sentences describes.
R ('He did not keep account books.') follows sentence 1 directly, introducing an unconventional habit of his.
P ('But he had two big books in his office.') opens with 'But', which contrasts directly with R's statement that he did not keep account books, and it introduces two containers ('two big books').
Q ('In one of them, he stuck the bills he owed.') uses 'one of them', referring back to the two books that P has just introduced.
S ('In the other, he pinned the bills owed to him.') completes the pair using 'the other', referring to the second of the two books from P.
The fixed sentence 6 ('But he was not a very good businessman.') then contrasts this elaborate bill-organising arrangement with the conclusion that he still wasn't a good businessman.
Chaining sentence 1 to R, P, Q, S, and then to sentence 6 gives the order R-P-Q-S, which corresponds to the option 'RPQS'.
Cross-check
Swapping R and P breaks the contrast: P's 'But' would then have nothing preceding it to contrast against.
Placing S or Q before P leaves 'the other' or 'one of them' without an antecedent, since the two books have not yet been introduced at that point.
Only the order R, P, Q, S lets every connective and referring phrase in the four middle sentences find its antecedent, confirming the sequence RPQS.