Sentences of a paragraph are given below in jumbled order. Arrange the sentences in the correct order to form a meaningful and coherent paragraph. A.He remembered her as she once was – an eager, glowing girl. B.He had not seen her for nearly thirteen years. C.Mr. Satterthwaite went to meet her. D.And now he saw – a Frozen Lady.
- (a)CBAD
- (b)ABCD
- (c)DBAC
- (d)DCBA
Answer
Why
Correct — A. Rule: a sentence that names a person in full comes before the sentences that call him he.
C is the sentence with the name — Mr. Satterthwaite went to meet her — so C opens.
B then supplies the background in the past perfect (had not seen her for nearly thirteen years), and A is the memory that gap holds — an eager, glowing girl.
D turns on And now, which points back at that memory and so must come last. C → B → A → D is option (a).
Why the others are wrong
- (b)ABCD — ABCD opens on He remembered her with no antecedent for he, and buries C — the sentence that names Mr. Satterthwaite — in third place.
- (c)DBAC — DBAC opens on And now, which announces a contrast before anything has been said to contrast with, and it ends on the meeting that has to start the paragraph.
- (d)DCBA — DCBA also opens on And now he saw, then runs the timeline backwards — meeting, thirteen-year gap, memory — with the present moment already spent.
Concept
Paragraph-ordering items are settled by reference words, not by the story.
A full name precedes the pronoun that stands for it, so a sentence carrying Mr. Satterthwaite outranks one carrying only he.
The past perfect (had not seen) is background to a narrative told in the simple past, so it sits just after the event it explains, not at the head of the paragraph.
A back-referring connector such as And now cannot open the set, because there is nothing behind it yet to refer to.
The first-sentence test alone decides this item. Two options open with D, which begins And now; of the remaining two, only C names the man before any sentence calls him he.
Key facts
- In a jumbled paragraph the sentence carrying the full name or noun precedes the sentences using pronouns for it.
- A sentence opening with And now, But or So refers back to something already stated, so it is rarely the opening sentence.
- Past perfect (had + past participle) marks background that precedes the main narrative time.
Study next
Common traps
- Ordering by story chronology instead of by the reference words the sentences carry
- Treating the memory sentence as the opening because it describes the earliest time
SSC gives four labelled sentences and four candidate orders. Ask which sentence can open before you read for meaning — that check removed two options here on its own.
The opener test carries over; the signal that settles it does not.
At 11 Sep 2024, 16:00, English Q.2 the key BCAD opens on a pronoun sentence and leaves the only named sentence last, so name-before-pronoun does not decide it.
At 12 Sep 2024, 09:00, English Q.4 the key CABD opens on a topic sentence instead.
Run the check on the four sentences in front of you; do not carry a rule over untested.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.