S1 : The ruin of Indian handicrafts was reflected in the ruin of the towns and cities which were famous for their manufactures. S6 : Centres were developed and laid waste. P : Dacca, Surat, Murshidabad and many other rising industrial Q : ravages of war and plunder, failed to R : survive British conquest S : Cities which had withstood the The proper sequence should be
- (a)P Q R S
- (b)S Q R P
- (c)S R P Q
- (d)Q R S P
Correct — B, S Q R P. Three fragments break off in the middle of a construction and can only be threaded one way. S stops on the article 'the', so it needs a noun, and Q begins with one — 'ravages of war and plunder'. Q then stops on 'failed to', which needs a verb, and R supplies it — 'survive British conquest'. That makes S Q R a single chain, and P is left to follow it, where its trailing adjective 'rising industrial' runs straight into the noun that opens the printed S6: 'Cities which had withstood the ravages of war and plunder, failed to survive British conquest. Dacca, Surat, Murshidabad and many other rising industrial Centres were developed and laid waste.'
- (a)P Q R S — It runs the list of city names straight into 'ravages of war and plunder', so 'rising industrial' is made to describe ravages, and it ends on 'Cities which had withstood the', a fragment cut off after an article.
- (c)S R P Q — It puts 'survive British conquest' immediately after 'Cities which had withstood the', which asks an article to be completed by a verb, and it leaves 'failed to' dangling at the very end of the paragraph.
- (d)Q R S P — It opens on 'ravages of war and plunder, failed to', a noun phrase with no subject of its own, and it separates that phrase from the relative clause in S that it was meant to complete.
An ordering item in which three fragments each stop in mid-construction, so the chain builds itself once you ask what each one is missing.
Ask of every fragment what word class has to come next. 'Cities which had withstood the' needs a noun; 'ravages of war and plunder, failed to' needs a verb in its plain form; 'survive British conquest' is complete and closes the sentence. That single pass builds S Q R with no guesswork, and the leftover fragment takes the remaining slot. The join at the other end is worth noticing too: P ends on the adjectives 'rising industrial' and the printed S6 begins with the noun 'Centres', so the two are one sentence broken across the anchor, capital letter and all. That capital, and the pairing 'developed and laid waste', are reproduced exactly as the booklet prints them; the sequence does not depend on either.
- A fragment ending in an article needs a noun next, and a fragment ending in 'to' needs the plain form of a verb, so both point to exactly what must follow.
- 'Fail to' is always completed by a bare infinitive — failed to survive, failed to appear, failed to reply.
- An adjective left at the end of a fragment is waiting for its noun, which is why the last fragment can be identified by looking at how S6 begins.
- Dacca, Surat and Murshidabad were among the manufacturing towns whose decline the passage is describing.
- Reading 'the' at the end of a fragment as the end of a phrase rather than as a signal that a noun is coming.
- Leaving a fragment that ends in 'to' at the close of the paragraph.
Asked as a sentence-ordering item in which each fragment ends mid-construction, so the sequence is built by matching gaps to fillers.
The essay P. like that of the human face Q. because its variety is infinite R. is a literary form S. which is not easy to define The proper sequence should be
- (a) P Q R S
- (b) P Q S R
- (c) R S Q P
- (d) R S P Q
Answer(c) R S Q P
Both are built as a chain in which every fragment supplies what the one before it is missing. There a noun calls for its relative clause, the relative clause calls for a reason, and the comparison closes; here an article calls for a noun and 'failed to' calls for a verb. Reading fragment by fragment for the missing word class solves either item without trial and error.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which sequence makes a correct paragraph — S1: The floods of that year changed the map of the delta. S6: Channels silted up within a single season. P: Nadia, Jessore and several other old river Q: currents of two great rivers, failed to R: hold their banks S: Embankments which had turned the
- (a)P Q R S
- (b)S Q R P
- (c)S R P Q
- (d)Q R S P
Answer(b) S Q R P — 'the' needs a noun, 'failed to' needs a plain verb, and the trailing 'old river' runs into the noun that opens S6.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which sequence makes a correct paragraph — S1: The new highway emptied the small towns along the old road. S6: Stalls closed one after another through that winter. P: Kalka, Barog and a dozen other roadside tea Q: rush of the summer season, failed to R: attract a single bus S: Halts which had once managed the
- (a)S Q R P
- (b)P Q R S
- (c)Q S R P
- (d)S R Q P
Answer(a) S Q R P — the same two gaps decide it, and the trailing 'tea' joins the noun that begins S6.