EPFO EO/AO 2023 General Ability Test · Question 1 of 120

Correct — B, (b) RQSP, so the paragraph runs S1 – R – Q – S – P – S6. Work the two fixed ends first, because a rearrangement item is decided at its joints, not in the middle. The opening joint is settled by a demonstrative. S1 says geological mapping demands skill and judgment; R begins ‘Such mapping requires keen observation and a knowledge of what data are significant.’ ‘Such mapping’ has exactly one antecedent in the whole set — the mapping named in S1 — so R can only sit at position 2. That alone eliminates two of the four options. The body then moves from what mapping needs to what the geologist must do. Q enlarges R: as the field work goes on and the larger picture unfolds, experience and judgment (the two nouns S1 introduced) are needed to evaluate the mass of facts from thousands of outcrops. S is marked as the climax of that argument by ‘Above all’ — a phrase that cannot open a paragraph body because it presupposes a list of lesser requirements already stated; it caps R and Q by naming the method, ‘working multiple hypotheses’. The closing joint confirms the rest. P explains the method S has just named — while the field work progresses the geologist should conceive as many interpretations as the known facts allow — and that is precisely the proposition S6 then defends, by calling it naive to gather ‘facts’ first and interpret them later. P beside S6 makes the last sentence an endorsement of something already said; move P anywhere else and S6 arrives arguing against a position the passage never stated. The chain of hooks is therefore: mapping → such mapping (R) → as the field work progresses (Q) → above all, multiple hypotheses (S) → conceive as many interpretations (P) → interpretation at a later date (S6).

• (a)SRQP — SRQP puts S immediately after S1. ‘Above all’ is a superlative connector: it ranks one requirement over others that must already be on the page, and after S1 there are none, so the paragraph would announce its climax before its argument. It also strands R — ‘Such mapping’ would then follow a sentence about hypotheses rather than about mapping. The ending P → S6 is right, which is what makes this the most tempting wrong option: candidates who check only the last joint accept it.
• (c)PSQR — PSQR opens with P, whose subject is a bare ‘he’ with no antecedent — the field geologist is not named until S. It also breaks the S–P pair, letting P precede the method it explains, and it ends on R. Ending on R means S6, which is about interpretation being deferred, follows a sentence about keen observation and significant data; the ‘Nothing is more naive than…’ rebuttal then answers nothing.
• (d)SRPQ — SRPQ shares the fatal opening of (a) — ‘Above all’ at position 2 — and then closes with Q. Q is a broad summarising sentence about experience and judgment evaluating the vast number of facts; placed last it duplicates S1 rather than leading anywhere, and it separates P from S6, so the passage’s final claim about gathering ‘facts’ first loses the sentence that sets it up.

A jumbled-passage item is not a test of taste; it is a test of whether you can read cohesion devices. Four devices decide almost every such item. First, demonstratives and pronouns — ‘such mapping’, ‘this’, ‘they’, ‘he’ — which point backwards and cannot point at nothing, so any sentence carrying one is barred from position 2 unless S1 supplies its referent. Second, ranking and contrast connectors — ‘above all’, ‘however’, ‘on the other hand’, ‘in fact’ — which presuppose the sentence they react to. Third, lexical repetition, where a noun introduced in one sentence reappears in the next. Fourth, the given ends: S1 and S6 are free information, and the sentence that must sit beside S6 is usually easier to fix than the whole order. Here all four converge. ‘Such mapping’ chains R to S1; ‘Above all’ forbids S from opening; ‘he’ in P needs the geologist named first; and S6’s attack on collecting facts before interpreting them is the direct sequel to P’s instruction to conceive interpretations while the field work is still going on.

Q1 opens Part A of the EO/AO General Ability Test, and Part A is the English Language section — twenty items in four five-item sets, printed in English only. This set of five is the rearrangement set, and the Directions block that governs all five is printed once, above this item; Q2 to Q5 print nothing but their own six sentences. The habit the paper is rewarding is joint-checking rather than reading for sense. Every one of the four options here produces prose that sounds acceptable read aloud, which is why choosing on fluency alone gives roughly random results at 2·5 marks each with one-third negative marking. Fixing position 2 by referent and the position beside S6 by argument settles most items in well under the time a full read of four permutations would cost.

• Part A of the EO/AO 2023 General Ability Test is Q1 to Q20, printed in English only; Q1 to Q5 are the sentence-rearrangement set.
• The Directions block is printed once, above this item, and governs Q1 to Q5; the four followers carry no instructions of their own.
• In every item of this set S1 and S6 are supplied and only P, Q, R and S are jumbled, so two of the six joints are already known.
• Here the deciding hook is the demonstrative ‘Such mapping’ in R, which can only refer back to the geological mapping named in S1.
• ‘Above all’ in S is a ranking connector; it presupposes lesser requirements already stated, so S cannot be the first of the four.

• Choosing the sequence that sounds smoothest when read aloud. All four permutations here read smoothly; only the referent chain separates them.
• Reading only the opening joint or only the closing joint. Option (a) has the correct P–S6 ending and a fatal start, and option (d) has the same fatal start with a weak ending.
• Treating ‘Above all’ as a neutral emphasis marker. It ranks, so it needs a list behind it, and it almost never opens the body of a paragraph.
• Forgetting that a bare pronoun such as the ‘he’ in P disqualifies a sentence from the position immediately after S1 when S1 names no person.

EPFO EO/AO Part A prints one five-item rearrangement set, always in the S1/S6-given form with P, Q, R and S jumbled, and always with the Directions block on the first item only. The passages are drawn from expository non-fiction — this one is on geological field method, and the other four items in this same set run on colonial infrastructure, contemporary history, income inequality and literary periodisation. The four options never exhaust the twenty-four possible orders; typically two or three of them share a first or last element, which is the examiner telling you which joint is being tested.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  S1 : A good laboratory notebook is written for a reader who is not present. S6 : That reader, more often than not, turns out to be the writer himself, years later. P : Such a record is useless if it cannot be followed by someone who did not perform the experiment. Q : Every entry must therefore carry the date, the conditions and the reason for the step taken. R : It is a running account of what was done, when, and why. S : Above all, it must be written at the bench and never reconstructed from memory afterwards. Select the proper sequence.

  • (a)RPQS
  • (b)SRPQ
  • (c)QSRP
  • (d)PQSR

  Answer(a) RPQS — R defines the notebook S1 has just named; P’s ‘Such a record’ chains to R; Q draws the practical consequence with ‘therefore’; S caps the list with ‘Above all’ and leads to S6’s remark about the writer as his own later reader.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In a jumbled-passage item, which single feature most reliably disqualifies a sentence from occupying the position immediately after S1 ?

  • (a)It is the longest of the four sentences
  • (b)It opens with a demonstrative or pronoun whose referent S1 does not supply
  • (c)It contains a proper noun
  • (d)It is written in the passive voice

  Answer(b) It opens with a demonstrative or pronoun whose referent S1 does not supply — anaphora must point backwards to something already on the page, so such a sentence needs another of the jumbled four ahead of it. Length, proper nouns and voice carry no positional information at all.