According to an engineer P. might hit the market next year Q. a newly developed air-cooler system R. that employed in conventional room coolers S. which is based on a principle radically different from The proper sequence should be
- (a)S Q R P
- (b)R S Q P
- (c)Q S R P
- (d)P Q R S
Correct — C, Q S R P. Q is the only noun phrase in the set, so it has to be the subject and follow the opener; S is a 'which' clause, which must sit next to the noun it describes and which ends on the dangling preposition 'from'; R supplies the object that 'different from' is waiting for; and P, the finite predicate, closes the sentence — giving 'According to an engineer, a newly developed air-cooler system which is based on a principle radically different from that employed in conventional room coolers might hit the market next year.'
- (a)S Q R P — It opens with 'which is based on…' immediately after 'According to an engineer', so the relative pronoun has no noun in front of it to describe, and 'different from' then takes the air-cooler system itself as its object.
- (b)R S Q P — It begins the sentence with 'that employed in conventional room coolers', where 'that' stands for a principle that has not yet been mentioned, so the pronoun points at nothing.
- (d)P Q R S — It puts the predicate 'might hit the market next year' before any subject, and it leaves 'radically different from' at the very end of the sentence with nothing to be different from.
An ordering item held together by a preposition that has been separated from its object.
The phrase 'different from' at the end of S is the hinge of the whole item. A preposition cannot end a sentence here, so whatever follows S has to be the thing being compared, and R is the only fragment that can play that part. Part R is printed as 'that employed in conventional room coolers' and is kept exactly as the booklet has it; it is not a slip. 'That' is a pronoun standing in for 'the principle', and 'employed in conventional room coolers' is a shortened passive clause describing it — the fuller form would be 'that which is employed in conventional room coolers'.
- 'That' can act as a substitute for a noun already mentioned, avoiding repetition, as in 'the climate of Delhi is drier than that of Mumbai'.
- A shortened passive clause drops 'which is' or 'which are' before a past participle, as in 'the method used here' for 'the method which is used here'.
- A comparison introduced by 'different from' is incomplete until the second term is supplied.
- Treating the printed 'that employed in conventional room coolers' as an error and rejecting the sequence that needs it.
- Leaving a relative pronoun such as 'which' with no noun in front of it.
Asked as a jumbled-word item whose answer is decided by one incomplete comparison and one relative pronoun that has to find its noun.
Scientists point out P. of sunspot activity Q. that it is an aftermath that R. has now reached its peak S. of the eleven-year cycle
- (a) R S P Q
- (b) P Q S R
- (c) Q R P S
- (d) Q S P R
Answer(d) Q S P R
The same chain is what decides both. There a noun is followed by two 'of' phrases that have to be threaded in the right order before the verb arrives; here 'different from' has to be threaded to its object before the predicate can close the sentence.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which sequence makes a correct sentence — The panel reported that P. is far higher than Q. that of the neighbouring district R. the literacy rate S. recorded here
- (a)R S P Q
- (b)P Q R S
- (c)Q R S P
- (d)S R P Q
Answer(a) R S P Q — the subject comes first, and 'higher than' must be handed the second term of the comparison.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which sequence makes a correct sentence — The committee praised P. the design Q. adopted in the older buildings R. which is quite unlike S. that
- (a)P R S Q
- (b)R P Q S
- (c)S Q P R
- (d)P Q S R
Answer(a) P R S Q — 'unlike' needs an object, and 'that' stands in for the design used earlier.