Sentences of a paragraph are given below in jumbled order. Select the option that arranges the sentences in the correct logical sequence to form a meaningful and coherent paragraph. a. This figure is predicted to climb as the percentage of Americans residing in rural areas falls by an average of 1.6% annually. b. The United Nations reports that India’s urban population is growing at a rate of 1.1 percent annually, while the country's rural population is shrinking at a rate of 0.37 percent annually. c. While 82% of Americans live in urban settings, only 30% of Indians do so. d. It's still a considerably smaller percentage of the Indian population than it is in the US that resides in urban areas.

Correct — A. Rule: a sentence that points backwards cannot open, and whatever it points at must already have been read.

Sentence (d) begins It's still and sentence (a) begins This figure, so both point backwards and neither can start the paragraph.

(b) opens: it reports the UN's growth rates for India's urban and rural populations and refers to nothing earlier.

(d) follows, because still concedes against that growth — India is urbanising, and its urban share is still smaller than the American one.

(c) then supplies the numbers behind that comparison, 82 per cent against 30 per cent. (a) closes: this figure is the American 82 per cent, so it cannot be read before (c) prints it.

Order b, d, c, a — option (a).

Why the others are wrong

• (b)
  d, b, a, c — Opening with sentence (d) starts the paragraph on It's still a considerably smaller percentage, a comparison with nothing yet to concede against. Still needs a preceding claim.
• (c)
  a, c, b, d — Opening with sentence (a) puts This figure before any figure has been given. In this order (a) comes before (c), the sentence that prints the 82 per cent, so the figure it points at is still to come.
• (d)
  b, d, a, c — The first two are right, but (a) is pulled ahead of (c). This figure would then point at nothing, because the American 82 per cent is printed in (c), which this order leaves till last.

A paragraph jumble is decided by reference chains, not by topic. Read every sentence for a word that points backwards — a pronoun, a demonstrative, or a conjunct such as still or however — and note what it needs said before it.

A sentence carrying such a word cannot open the paragraph.

Here it's still in (d) needs a growth claim behind it, and this figure in (a) needs a figure behind it. Among the four orders offered, those two constraints alone leave b, d, c, a.

Key facts

• A demonstrative such as this figure must follow the sentence that supplies the figure.
• Still concedes against an earlier claim, so it needs that claim before it.
• Sentence (c) supplies the American 82 per cent that this figure in (a) names.
• This item labels its sentences in lower case, a to d, and the options print them comma-separated.

Common traps

• Ordering the sentences by how the statistics build instead of by what refers to what
• Reading this figure in (a) as the Indian 30 per cent rather than the American 82 per cent
• Settling for b, d, a, c because its first two sentences are already right

No directly related past PYQ was found.