Rearrange the following sentences to form a coherent paragraph: 1. This process, a crucial part of the water cycle, ensures that freshwater resources are replenished and distributed globally. 2. The sun's energy drives the evaporation of water from oceans, lakes, and rivers. 3. When the moist air cools, it condenses to form clouds, which then release the water back to the Earth as precipitation. 4. The resulting water vapor then rises into the atmosphere, carried by air currents.
- (a)2, 4, 3, 1
- (b)1, 2, 4, 3
- (c)4, 3, 2, 1
- (d)3, 2, 1, 4
Answer
Why
Correct — A. Sentence 2 opens: 'The sun's energy drives the evaporation of water from oceans, lakes, and rivers.' It points back to nothing.
4 follows: 'The resulting water vapor then rises', resulting from that evaporation.
3 continues: 'When the moist air cools', the air now carrying that vapor.
1 closes: 'This process, a crucial part of the water cycle', summing up the whole cycle → 2, 4, 3, 1, option (a).
Why the others are wrong
- (b)1, 2, 4, 3 — Opens with This process, which has nothing before it to point to. The process it names is described in sentences 2, 4 and 3, so sentence 1 has to follow them.
- (c)4, 3, 2, 1 — Opens with The resulting water vapor, resulting from nothing yet. The evaporation that produces it is in sentence 2, which this order puts third.
- (d)3, 2, 1, 4 — Opens with the moist air before any vapor has risen, and ends with 'The resulting water vapor', cut off from the evaporation in sentence 2 that it results from.
Concept
In a jumble, look for sentences that lean back: pronouns (it, this), the + a noun already mentioned, and words like resulting or then. A sentence that leans back cannot open.
The opener names its subject outright. Here sentence 2 does that, and each later sentence picks up a word from the one before it.
A summary sentence with This process comes after the process has been described.
The order also follows the physical cycle: evaporation, rising vapor, condensation into clouds, precipitation. Knowing the science helps, but the linking words decide the order on their own.
Key facts
- In the water cycle, evaporated water rises as vapor, cools, condenses into clouds and returns as precipitation.
- The resulting points back to a process just described, so its sentence cannot open.
- A sentence beginning This process needs the process described before it.
Study next
Common traps
- Opening with sentence 1 because it sounds like a topic sentence — This process has to point back to something.
- Putting 3 before 4 — the moist air needs the rising vapor of sentence 4 first.
The same 'This process, a crucial part of the ... cycle' closer is keyed last at 14 Sep 2025, 12:30, English Q.25, a pollination jumble keyed 2, 3, 4, 1.
At 14 Sep 2025, 12:30, English Q.24 the key puts 'This process, known as photosynthesis' second, straight after the sentence that describes the process.
Related PYQs
No directly related past PYQ was found.