The small boy who P. broke his leg Q. fell down R. and S. climbed the wall The proper sequence should be
- (a)P S R Q
- (b)S Q R P
- (c)Q S R P
- (d)S P R Q
Correct — B, S Q R P. The opener ends in 'who', so the fragment right after it becomes the relative clause, and the events then have to run in the only order they can happen in — the boy climbed the wall (S), fell down (Q), and (R) broke his leg (P), giving 'The small boy who climbed the wall fell down and broke his leg.'
- (a)P S R Q — It yields 'the boy who broke his leg climbed the wall and fell down', which puts the broken leg before the climb and so turns the effect into the cause.
- (c)Q S R P — It yields 'the boy who fell down climbed the wall and broke his leg', in which the fall happens before the climb that caused it.
- (d)S P R Q — It yields 'climbed the wall broke his leg and fell down', which has the leg break before the fall and leaves the fall as an afterthought.
An ordering item in which grammar alone will not decide the answer, so the sequence of events has to.
This item is unusual and worth noticing. Three of the four sequences produce strings that are grammatically well formed, because 'and' will happily join any two of these verb phrases. What separates them is cause and effect — a boy climbs, then falls, then breaks a leg, and no other order describes a possible event. The single word 'and' is also useful as a position marker, since a coordinator cannot begin or end the string and here has to sit in the third slot with a verb phrase on either side.
- 'And' is a coordinating conjunction and must have material of the same kind on both sides of it.
- A relative clause introduced by 'who' takes the verb nearest to it, so whichever fragment follows 'who' becomes the description of the boy.
- Stopping at the first sequence that sounds grammatical, when three of the four are.
- Forgetting that the fragment immediately after 'who' becomes the boy's description and changes the whole meaning.
Asked as a jumbled-word item where the options are near-anagrams and the real test is the order in which the events could have happened.
After our school boys had won a well-contested hockey match P. so that they might communicate the news of their victory to the headmaster Q. who is a keen sportsman R. they came to school in high spirits S. and takes a very lively interest in school games
- (a) Q P S R
- (b) S Q P R
- (c) R P Q S
- (d) P R Q S
Answer(c) R P Q S
Both items are settled by two of the same devices — a relative clause has to sit next to the noun it describes, and the stray 'and' has to have a matching piece on each side of it.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which sequence makes a correct sentence — The old man who P. lost his umbrella Q. and R. missed the bus S. slipped on the step
- (a)S Q R P
- (b)P S Q R
- (c)S R Q P
- (d)R P Q S
Answer(c) S R Q P — the slip comes first, then the missed bus, with 'and' joining the last two events.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which sequence makes a correct sentence — The driver who P. and Q. hit the divider R. lost control S. dozed at the wheel
- (a)S R P Q
- (b)Q S P R
- (c)R S P Q
- (d)S Q P R
Answer(a) S R P Q — dozing causes the loss of control, which causes the collision, with 'and' fixed in the third slot.