Para Jumbles serve to test a candidate’s verbal ability skills and comprise two broad categories of questions:
a) Sentence re-arrangement to form a coherent paragraph
b) The identification of an out-of-context sentence in a given set of statements.

Tips And Tricks To Solve Para Jumbles For CAT

• Like in RCs, the key here is to identify the chain of thought. Once the candidate is able to identify the common central theme of the given parajumble, solving it becomes effortless.
• Identify the introductory and concluding sentences: Identifying the introductory or concluding statements amount to 50% of the work being done. After obtaining either or both of these markers, arranging the remaining statements based on the flow of information becomes an effortless task.
• Identifying links and transition words: A viable approach to solve para-jumbles involves pairing the statements based on certain traits or indicators.

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Question 1: Choose the most logical order of sentences among the given choices to construct a coherent paragraph.
A. A few months ago I went to Princeton University to see what the young people who are going to be running our country in a few decades are like.
B. I would go to sleep in my hotel room around midnight each night, and when I awoke, my mailbox would be full of replies—sent at 1:15 a.m., 2:59 a.m., 3:23 a.m.
C. One senior told me that she went to bed around two and woke up each morning at seven; she could afford that much rest because she had learned to supplement her full day of work by studying in her sleep.
D. Faculty members gave me the names of a few dozen articulate students, and I sent them e mails, inviting them out to lunch or dinner in small groups.
E. As she was falling asleep she would recite a math problem or a paper topic to herself; she would then sometimes dream about it, and when she woke up, the problem might be solved.

a) DABCE

b) DACEB

c) ADBCE

d) AECBD

1) Answer (C)

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Solution:

A is the best opening sentence. It introduces the author’s trip to Princeton University.
This is followed by D, which talks about how the author prepared for his trip by gathering the email ids of a few Princeton students.
B then follows and describes what happened when the author emailed the students of Princeton.
The situation is then explained in sentence C and followed by sentence E.

Question 2: Choose the most logical order of sentences from among the given choices to construct a coherent paragraph?
A. But this does not mean that death was the Egyptians only preoccupation.
B. Even papyri come mainly from pyramid temples.
C. Most of our traditional sources of information about the Old Kingdom are monuments of the rich like pyramids and tombs.
D. Houses in which ordinary Egyptian lived have not been preserved, and when most people died they were buried in simple graves.
E. We know infinitely more about the wealthy people of Egypt than we do about the ordinary people, as most monuments were made for the rich.

a) CDBEA

b) ECDAB

c) EDCBA

d) DECAB

2) Answer (C)

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Solution:

Out of statement C, E and D , E perfectrly opens the topic . Also statement B should come after statement C, as C talks about how pyramids and temples are sources of information and B takes it forward by saying that even papyrus came from pyramids. SO we have CB pair. Hence, Option C .

Question 3: Choose the most logical order of sentences from among the given choices to construct a coherent paragraph.
A. The situations in which violence occurs and the nature of that violence tends to be clearly defined at least in theory, as in the proverbial Irishman’s question: “Is this a private fight or can anyone join in?”
B. So the actual risk to outsiders, though no doubt higher than our societies, is calculable.
C. Probably the only uncontrolled applications of force are those of social superiors to social inferiors and even here there are probably some rules.
D. However, binding the obligation to kill, members of feuding families engaged in mutual massacre will be genuinely appalled if by some mischance a bystander or outsider is killed.
[CAT 2001]

a) DABC

b) ACDB

c) CBAD

d) DBAC

3) Answer (B)

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Solution:

A is the best opening sentence. It talks about the nature of violence being clearly defined. This is followed by C, which talks about an exception to the theory mentioned in A. C is followed by D and B is the best concluding statement. The correct order of sentences is, therefore, ACDB.

Question 4: The sentences given in each question, when properly sequenced, form a coherent paragraph. Each sentence is labelled with a letter. Choose the most logical order of sentences from among the given choices to construct a coherent paragraph.
A. Having a strategy is a matter of discipline.
B. It involves the configuration of a tailored value chain that enables a company to offer unique value.
C. It requires a strong focus on profitability and a willingness to make tough tradeoffs in choosing what not to do.
D. Strategy goes far beyond the pursuit of best practices.
E. A company must stay the course even during times of upheaval, while constantly improving and extending its distinctive positioning.
F. When a company’s activities fit together as a self-reinforcing system, any competitor wishing to imitate a strategy must replicate the whole system.

a) ACEDBF

b) ACBDEF

c) DCBEFA

d) ABCEDF

4) Answer (A)

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Solution:

A introduces the main idea of the para – having a strategy.

C and E extend this idea in that order. So, ACE is a sequence.

DB is a mandatory pair. The ‘it’ in sentence B refers to ‘the strategy’ in sentence D.

F is the concluding sentence.

So, the correct order of sentences is ACEDBF.

Question 5: Select the correct sequence of the four sentences given below.
A. Then think of by how much our advertising could increase the sales level.
B. Advertising effectiveness can be best grasped intuitively on a per capita basis.
C. Overall effectiveness is easily calculated by considering the number of buyers and the cost of advertising.
D. Think of how much of our brand the average individual is buying now.

a) DCAB

b) DACB

c) BCDA

d) ABCD

5) Answer (C)

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Solution:

B is the best opening sentence – it introduces the topic of the paragraph, advertising. This is followed by C which talks about the overall effectiveness and then by D which talks about individual effectiveness. The last sentence is A. Option c) is the correct answer.

Question 6: 1.Hiss was serving as Head of the Endowment on August 3, 1948, when Whittaker Chambers reluctantly appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
A. Chambers, a portly rumpled man with a melodramatic style, had been a Communist courier but had broken with the party in 1938.
B. When Nixon arranged a meeting of the two men in New York, Chambers repeated his charges and Hiss his denials.
C. Summoned as a witness, Hiss denied that he had ever been a Communist or had known Chambers.
D. He told the Committee that among the members of a secret Communist cell in Washington during the 1930s was Hiss.
6. Then, bizarrely, Hiss asked Chambers to open his mouth.

a) CBAD

b) ADBC

c) ADCB

d) ACDB

6) Answer (C)

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Solution:

A is the first sentence as it introduces Mr. Chambers

B has to follow C as it mentions “Hiss’ denials” that was initially mentioned in C.

C has to follow D as it mentions “communist” links of Hiss which was initially mentioned in D.

So, the order is ADCB

Question 7: Arrange sentences A, B, C and D between sentences 1 and 6, so as to form a logical sequence of six sentences.
1. India, which has two out of every five TB patients in the world, is on the brink of a major public health disaster.
A. If untreated, a TB patient can die within five years.
B. Unlike AIDS, the great curse of modern sexuality, the TB germ is airborne, which means there are no barriers to its spread.
C. The dreaded infection ranks fourth among major killers worldwide.
D. Every minute, a patient falls prey to the infection in India, which means that over five lakh people die of the disease annually.
6. Anyone, anywhere can be affected by this disease.

a) CADB

b) BACD

c) ABCD

d) DBAC

7) Answer (A)

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Solution:

Take a look at the last sentence of the paragraph:”Anyone, anywhere can be affected by this disease.” This is connected to B. So B is the last sentence. Option C is the proper starting sentence which talks about its prevalence. Option A is the logical follwer of option C which highlights the status of India on TB. Option D follows A. The correct sequence is CADB.

Question 8: Arrange sentences A, B, C and D between sentences 1 and 6 to form a logical sequence of six sentences.
1. The problem of improving Indian agriculture is both a sociological and an administrative one.
A. It also appears that there is a direct relationship between the size of a state and development.
B. The issues of Indian development, and the problem of India’s agricultural sector, will remain with us long into the next century.
C. Without improving Indian agriculture, no liberalisation and delicensing will be able to help India.
D. At the end of the day, there has to be a ferment and movement of life and action in the vast segment of rural India.
6. When it starts marching, India will fly.

a) DABC

b) CDBA

c) ACDB

d) ABCD

8) Answer (D)

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Solution:

Statement A highlights the additional issue. Statement B substantiates A. Option C  highlights the issues facing indian agriculture as mentioned in B. Option D is the last sentence as in 6, “it” refers to rural class.

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Question 9: Arrange the following sentences to form a coherent paragraphA. The influence is reflected the most in beaded evening wear.B. Increasingly, the influence of India’s colours and cuts can be seen on western styles.C. And even as Nehru jackets and Jodhpurs remain staples of the fashion world, designers such as Armani and McFadden have turned to the sleek silhouette of the churidar this year.D. Indian hot pink, paprika and saffron continue to be popular colours, year in and year out.

a) BADC

b) ABCD

c) BCAD

d) DABC

9) Answer (A)

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Solution:

B is the first sentence of the paragraph. It introduces the subject of the paragraph – the influence of Indian wear on the west. This is then followed by A, which talks about where the maximum influence is. D, which further elaborates the idea, follows A. The concluding sentence is C. Option a) is the correct answer.

Question 10: A. He was bone-weary and soul-weary, and found himself muttering, “Either I can’t manage this place, or it’s unmanageable.”
B. To his horror, he realized that he had become the victim of an amorphous, unwitting, unconscious conspiracy to immerse him in routine work that had no significance.
C. It was one of those nights in the office. when -the office clock was moving towards four in the morning and Bennis was still not through with the incredible mass of paper stacked before him.
D. He reached for his calendar and ran his eyes down each hour, half-hour, and quarter-hour, to see where his time had gone that day, the day before, the month before.

a) ABCD

b) CADB

c) BDCA

d) DCBA

10) Answer (B)

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Solution:

In the sentences A, B and D, pronouns are used whereas the noun “Bennis” is used in only sentence C. Hence, C is the first sentence.

B follows D because of the cause and effect relationship. The cause is mentioned in D and B is the result.

But C and D are not related directly. Hence, A follows C and D follows A.

=> CADB is the answer.

Question 11: 1. High-powered outboard motors were considered to be one of the major threats to the survival of the Beluga whales.
A. With these, hunters could approach Belugas within hunting range and profit from its inner skin and blubber.
B. To escape an approaching motor, Belugas have learned to dive to the ocean bottom and stay there for up to 20 minutes, by which time the confused predator has left.
C. Today, however, even with much more powerful engines, it is difficult to come close, because the whales seem to disappear suddenly just when you thought you had them in your sights.
D. When the first outboard engines arrived in the early 1930s, one came across 4 and 8 HP motors.
6. Belugas seem to have used their well-known sensitivity to noise to evolve an ‘avoidance’ strategy to outsmart hunters and their powerful technologies.

a) DACB

b) CDAB

c) ADBC

d) BDAC

11) Answer (A)

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Solution:

From the first sentence, we know that high-powered outboard motors are not major threats anymore because of the usage of the word “were”.

The author starts explaining this statement by giving information about the past in sentence D.

A follows D bacause the athor explains in A how the motors are used.

Now, the author talks about the present in C, whose idea is continued in B.

Hence, DACB is the answer.

Question 12: Five sentences related to a topic are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a meaningful and coherent short paragraph. Identify the odd one out.l. People who study children’s language spend a lot of time watching how babies react to the speech they hear around them.
2. They make films of adults and babies interacting, and examine them very carefully to see whether the babies show any signs of understanding what the adults say.
3. They believe that babies begin to react to language from the very moment they are born.
4. Sometimes the signs are very subtle — slight movements of the baby’s eyes or the head or the hands.
5. You’d never notice them if you were just sitting with the child, but by watching a recording over and over, you can spot them.

12) Answer: 3

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Solution:

After reading all the sentences, we know that the paragraph is about the children’s language and the signs that they show. Statement 1 is the opening sentence as it introduces us to the method adopted to study children’s language. Statement 2 further explains the method how people study the signs given by children. Statements 4 and 5 are about the signs mentioned in statement 2. Thus, all the four statements are related to the methodology adopted by people to study children’s language. Therefore, these 4 sentences form a paragraph.
Statement 3 is about the reaction of children to a certain language. So, statement 3 is about a different topic and does not fit in the paragraph.
Hence, 3 is the correct answer.

Question 13: The five sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) given in this question, when properly sequenced, form a coherent paragraph. Each sentence is labelled with a number. Decide on the proper order for the sentences and key in this sequence of five numbers as your answer.
1. Johnson treated English very practically, as a living language, with many different shades of meaning and adopted his definitions on the principle of English common law — according to precedent.
2. Masking a profound inner torment, Johnson found solace in compiling the words of a language that was, in its coarse complexity and comprehensive genius, the precise analogue of his character.
3. Samuel Johnson was a pioneer who raised common sense to heights of genius, and a man of robust popular instincts whose watchwords were clarity, precision and simplicity.
4. The 18th century English reader, in the new world of global trade and global warfare, needed a dictionary with authoritative acts of definition of words of a language that was becoming seeded throughout the first British empire by a vigorous and practical champion.
5. The Johnson who challenged Bishop Berkeley’s solipsist theory of the nonexistence of matter by kicking a large stone (“I refute it thus”) is the same Johnson for whom language must have a daily practical use.

13) Answer: 43512

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Solution:

Sentence 4 should be the opening sentence since it talks about the need for a dictionary in the 18th century. The other 4 statements talk about Samuel Johnson.
3 must follow 4 since it introduces the subject, Samuel Johnson. Only sentence 3 contains the full name of Samuel Johnson.
3 should be followed by 5 since it describes Johnson’s character. 5 plays the role of a general introduction and hence, it should be placed before any specific detail regarding Johnson’s contribution to the dictionary is introduced.
Out of sentences 1 and 2, 1 should precede 2 since it establishes that Johnson worked on English and sentence 2 explains the innate connection between Johnson and the language (English).
43512 is the correct order.

Question 14: The four sentences (labelled 1,2,3,4) given in this question, when properly sequenced, form a coherent paragraph. Each sentence is labelled with a number. Decide on the proper sequence of order of the sentences and key in this sequence of four numbers as your answer.
1. Impartiality and objectivity are fiendishly difficult concepts that can cause all sorts of injustices even if transparently implemented.
2. It encourages us into bubbles of people we know and like, while blinding us to different perspectives, but the deeper problem of ‘transparency’ lies in the words “…and much more”.
3. Twitter’s website says that “tweets you are likely to care about most will show up first in your timeline…based on accounts you interact with most, tweets you engage with, and much more.”
4. We are only told some of the basic principles, and we can’t see the algorithm itself, making it hard for citizens to analyse the system sensibly or fairly or be convinced of its impartiality and objectivity.

14) Answer: 1324

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Solution:

On reading the sentences, we can infer that the paragraph is about the difficulty in implementing impartiality and objectivity.

Sentence 3 states that Twitter’s website says that algorithm shows tweets that are likely to suit the taste of the user and much more. Sentence 2 continues sentence 3 by stating that the catch lies in the term ‘much more’. Also, it criticizes how catering to the taste of the user forces him into a bubble. Sentence 2 should be followed by sentence 4 since it states the implications of the term ‘much more’ and how it makes believing in the impartiality and objectivity of twitter hard.

Sentences 324 form a group. The entire group has been provided as an illustration to explain how hard it is to implement impartiality and objectively. Therefore, sentence 1 should be the opening sentence.

Sentences 1324 form a coherent paragraph. Hence, 1324 is the correct answer.

Question 15: Five sentences related to a topic are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a meaningful and coherent short paragraph. Identify the odd one out.

1. As India looks to increase the number of cities, our urban planning
must factor in potential natural disasters and work out contingencies in
advance.
2. Authorities must revise data and upgrade infrastructure and
mitigation plans even if their local area hasn’t been visited by a
natural calamity yet.
3. Extreme temperatures, droughts, and forest fires have more than doubled since 1980.
4. There is no denying the fact that our baseline normal weather is changing.
5. It is no longer a question of whether we will be hit by nature’s fury but rather when.

15) Answer: 3

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Solution:

If we read all the sentences together, we see that the author is arguing for India preparing itself in advance for future natural disasters. Sentence 4, which introduces the broader context makes for a good opening line. Sentences 1 and 2 together make the main point that the author is trying make through the paragraph – that India should prepare itself for future natural disasters. Sentence 5 emphasizes the main point by adding that natural disasters will occur in the future and thus makes for a good concluding line.

Sentence 3, that talks about extreme temperatures does not lead off to any of the other sentences nor does it add to any of the other sentences. Hence, it is the odd one.

Additional Explanation:

1-2 is a block, both are talking about things that authorities should do
45 are rhetorical opinions of the author on the weather.
3 is a fact. We use facts to draw reasonable conclusions.
This standalone fact cannot be used to draw any conclusion.
The style of the author’s writing in 4 and 5 are more opinionated than factual. So 3 is a misfit.
Moreover, we cannot make a connection between 1-4,
1 says we need contingencies for natural disaster(suggestive) whereas, 4 says whether is changing(rhetorical).