Question 87

The sentences given below, when properly sequenced, form a coherent paragraph. Each sentence is labelled with a number. Decide on the most logical order and enter the sequence of numbers in the space provided.

  1. Meanwhile, people are posting less. The share of Americans who say they enjoy documenting their life online has fallen from 40 per cent to 28 per cent since 2020.
  2. The striking feature of the new social media is that they are no longer very social.
  3. Some of the consequences of this are welcome. Political campaigners say they have to tone down their message to win over private groups.
  4. Debate is moving to closed platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram.
  5. Inspired by TikTok, apps like Facebook increasingly serve a diet of clips selected by artificial intelligence according to a userʼs viewing behaviour, not their social connections.


Correct Answer: 25143

Sentences 4 and 5 mention specific social media platforms; sentence 1 talks about posting (on social media) and sentence 3 talks about the consequences (possibly of people's engagement with social media). Sentence 2, unlike other sentences that delve deeper into the aspects, is far more general. We can start the paragraph with sentence 2 as our opening sentence.

Sentence 2 primarily mentions that social media is no longer social. Sentence 5 explains why social media of today is not very social (by talking about how apps like TikTok and Facebook focus on serving people a diet of clips rather than focusing on social connections). Sentence 5 should directly come after sentence 2. 25 is the opening pair.

Sentences 4 and 3, which talk respectively about 'debate' and 'private groups on social media' cannot come after sentence 5 because they mention aspects that are not yet discussed in sentences 2 and 5. Sentence 1 is the only reasonable choice. 251 should be the opening sentences in that order.

The possible sequences are 25134 and 25143. Sentence 4 mentions that debate is moving to closed platforms, alluding to people restricting themselves from sharing and documenting their lives online ('document' is the contrast being offered against 'closed'). Sentence 3 mentions consequences (of everything about social media being no longer social) and the privacy alluded to in sentence 4. Sentence 3 should therefore follow sentence 4, which in turn should follow sentence 1.

The correct sequence, therefore, is 25143.

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