Parts of a sentence are given below in jumbled order. Arrange the parts in the correct order to form a meaningful sentence. A. at the same time giving happiness to the poor B. by providing them with food, clothes, money or grain C. festivals in India are celebrated to share happiness D. by being in the presence of the members of the family and

Correct — C. Only part C carries a subject with a finite verb — festivals in India are celebrated — so C opens the sentence. The other three are phrases and cannot stand alone.

Part D ends on a hanging and, which promises another element after it. That element is A, whose "at the same time" answers D's "and".

B follows A, because them in "providing them with food" needs an antecedent, and "the poor" is named only in A.

Those three tests fix the order as CDAB, option (c).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  CABD — CABD ends the sentence on D, whose last word is and. A coordinating conjunction cannot be the final word of a sentence, so the order fails whatever its meaning does.
• (b)
  ACBD — ACBD opens with A, a bare participial phrase with no subject. The finite verb sits in C, so C must come first, and this order also ends on D's dangling and.
• (d)
  CBAD — CBAD puts B before A, so them in "providing them" arrives before "the poor" it refers to. It also leaves the sentence ending on D's hanging and.

A parts-jumble is decided by structure, not by which version sounds nicer.

Two tests do most of the work. First, find the part that carries a finite verb with its subject: that part is the main clause and everything else hangs off it. Here only C has one.

Second, read the loose ends. A part ending in and is promising another element after it, so it cannot come last. A part containing a pronoun must follow the noun that pronoun replaces.

Those two tests alone fix CDAB.

Key facts

• The main clause is part C, the only part with a subject and a finite verb: festivals in India are celebrated.
• A jumbled part ending in a coordinating conjunction such as and must be followed by the element it coordinates with.
• A part containing a pronoun cannot come before the part that names what the pronoun refers to, which is why B follows A.
• The completed sentence reads: Festivals in India are celebrated to share happiness by being in the presence of the members of the family and at the same time giving happiness to the poor by providing them with food, clothes, money or grain.

Common traps

• Assuming the part labelled A belongs first because of its label.
• Accepting CABD because it reads smoothly up to B, without checking that the sentence then ends on the word and.
• Treating by being and by providing as interchangeable, when each attaches to a different half of the sentence.

No directly related past PYQ was found.