Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow : On 15…
2024
Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow :
On 15 January 2009, several interesting things happened. A plane crash landed into the Hudson River, right in the middle of New York City. The pilot, crew and 155 passengers escaped safely. But then, something else happened... Jim was nearby and watched the event happen. He immediately tweeted that he had just seen a plane crash in the Hudson. From there the news spread quickly. People contacted him immediately and asked him what was happening, and other people on the street took photos and videos with their phones and posted them online. Ordinary people suddenly became journalists. It was 15 minutes before the news broke on official news channels.
Photos, videos and tweets from ordinary people at the scene of dramatic events now provide the words and images that describe events in the news. When a meteor exploded over a Russian city in 2013, millions of people around the world watched videos and photos of the event on Facebook and YouTube. Social media can also save lives. In January 2010, an earthquake hit the Caribbean island of Haiti. The government said that there had been an earthquake, but they didn’t give many details at first. Meanwhile, people living in the disaster area were posting photos and eye witness accounts on Twitter and Facebook and telling the world that it was an emergency and houses were collapsing. A local radio presenter used this information to help people find family members, and people even phoned his program to ask if their relatives were safe.
News travels fast on social media, but false stories spread just as quickly as the truth. Some of these “facts” are erroneous, others are deliberate hoaxes. Hoaxes remind us that not everything people post and publish is reliable. But social media can change our lives for the better.
Arrange the following events as mentioned in para 1 in the correct sequential order.(a) Jim watched the crash and tweeted.
(b) People started contacting Jim for updated news.
(c) A plane crashed into the Hudson River.
(d) The news of the crash was broadcast 15 minutes later
- A.
(c) → (b) → (d) → (a)
- B.
(b) → (c) → (a) → (d)
- C.
(d) → (c) → (a) → (b)
- D.
(c) → (a) → (b) → (d)
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: D
Concept: In passage-based event-ordering questions, the correct sequence is fixed by the explicit temporal signals stated in the passage itself (words such as "then", "immediately", "from there", "X minutes before/after") -- never by the order in which an option happens to list the events.
Application: Paragraph 1 gives four temporal anchors in this order:
"A plane crash landed into the Hudson River" -- the triggering event, (c), which every later event depends on.
"Jim was nearby and watched the event happen. He immediately tweeted" -- Jim's tweet, (a), tied to the crash by the word "immediately".
"From there the news spread quickly. People contacted him immediately and asked him what was happening" -- the public reaching out to Jim, (b), which follows his tweet becoming known.
"It was 15 minutes before the news broke on official news channels" -- the official broadcast, (d), explicitly placed last with a stated 15-minute gap.
Cross-check: Re-reading the paragraph confirms none of these four anchors can be swapped: the crash must precede everything (nothing can trigger it retroactively), Jim's own tweet is marked "immediately" after he watches the crash, the public's contact with Jim is described only after his tweet spreads the news, and the official broadcast is explicitly the last, delayed event.
Result: The correct sequential order is (c) → (a) → (b) → (d).