SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 22 September 2025, Shift 1 · English Comprehension · Question 24 of 98

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 13 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. From 2025 the candidate response sheet prints every question and option as a picture, so the text here is transcribed from those pictures for this shift and checked against them independently; where the layout carries meaning, the picture is shown as well. Each answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. SSC released a tentative key for challenge and later its final one, both only to candidates behind a login, and the sheet does not say which of the two it carries. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Rearrange the following sentences to form a meaningful passage: 1. The Renaissance marked a revival of classical learning. 2. Artists focused on realism and human emotion. 3. Patronage from wealthy families fueled cultural output. 4. This period reshaped Europe’s intellectual landscape.

(a)1-3-2-4
(b)2-1-3-4
(c)2-3-1-4
(d)1-2-3-4

Answer

Why

Correct — A. Fix the ends first. Sentence 1 names the topic, the Renaissance, so it opens. Sentence 4 sums up with This period, so it closes.

In between, 3 comes before 2. Patronage from wealthy families fueled cultural output, the broad result; Artists focused on realism and human emotion then says what that output looked like.

General before specific: 1-3-2-4, option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
2-1-3-4 — Opens with 2, so artists appear before the passage has named the Renaissance. The reader has no period to attach them to.
(c)
2-3-1-4 — Opens with 2 as well, and pushes the topic sentence 1 into third place, after details that depend on it.
(d)
1-2-3-4 — 2 before 3 is the near miss. It jumps from classical learning straight to artists, then steps back to the patronage behind that work; the key runs from the funding and its output to the art.

Concept

Solve a four-sentence jumble from its ends. The opener names its subject in full. A sentence starting with a pointing word such as This, That or Such refers back and cannot open.

Here 1 names the Renaissance and 4's This period sums it up, so 1 opens and 4 closes.

Sentences 2 and 3 have no pronoun or connective linking them, so they are ordered by flow: the broader statement (cultural output) before the narrower one (what artists focused on).

Nothing grammatical forces 3 before 2. The key rests on the general-to-specific flow, which is why the printed order, 1-2-3-4, is the tempting miss.

Key facts

The opening sentence names the topic in full: The Renaissance.
A sentence starting This period refers back, so it cannot open the passage.
This key orders the middle pair general before specific: 3 (cultural output) before 2 (what artists focused on).

Study next

Opening and closing sentences in parajumblesPointing words that fix order: this, these, such, the formerConnectives that fix order: however, therefore, as a result

Common traps

Opening with the most vivid sentence, Artists focused on realism, instead of the one that names the topic.
Accepting the printed order 1-2-3-4 without testing the middle pair.

A fixed opener and closer with a middle pair to order also appears at 17 Sep 2025, 16:00, English Q.24 (ocean acidification), keyed 1-3-2-4.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Para jumbles — all 121 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.