CAT 2019 Slot 2 — VARC Question 27
The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, and 4) given in this question, when properly sequenced, form a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper order for the sentences and key in this sequence of four numbers as your answer.
- To the uninitiated listener, atonal music can sound like chaotic, random noise.
- Atonality is a condition of music in which the constructs of the music do not ‘live’ within the confines of a particular key signature, scale, or mode.
- After you realize the amount of knowledge, skill, and technical expertise required to compose or perform it, your tune may change, so to speak.
- However, atonality is one of the most important movements in 20th century music.
Answer & solution
Answer: 2143
Easy
Four-sentence rearrangement on atonal music. Sentences carrying conjunctions or back-references (“However”, “your tune may change”) cannot open. Find the definition that starts the topic, then follow the contrast and resolution markers.
Fix the opener: 2. Sentence 2 defines what atonality is — music whose constructs do not live within a key, scale, or mode. It introduces the subject neutrally, with no connective, so it opens. Sentences 3 (“After you realize…”) and 4 (“However…”) clearly depend on earlier content and cannot start.
1 gives the naive reaction. After the definition, sentence 1 states how it strikes the “uninitiated listener” — like “chaotic, random noise.” This negative first impression is the idea the next sentence will push against: order 2–1.
4 contrasts with “However”. Sentence 4 uses “However” to counter that dismissive impression — atonality is “one of the most important movements in 20th century music.” The contrast word needs the negative claim in 1 before it, giving 1–4.
3 closes. Sentence 3 resolves the arc: once you realise the knowledge and skill atonal music demands, “your tune may change.” This payoff naturally ends the paragraph, giving 2–1–4–3.
The correct sequence is 2143.