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CAT 2019 Slot 2 — VARC Question 29

Mixed PracticeEasy

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. Choose its number as your answer and key it in.

  1. Ocean plastic is problematic for a number of reasons, but primarily because marine animals eat it.
  2. The largest numerical proportion of ocean plastic falls in small size fractions.
  3. Aside from clogging up the digestive tracts of marine life, plastic also tends to adsorb pollutants from the water column.
  4. Plastic in the oceans is arguably one of the most important and pervasive environmental problems today.
  5. Eating plastic has a number of negative consequences such as the retention of plastic particles in the gut for longer periods than normal food particles.

Answer & solution

Correct answer: 2

Answer: 2

Solution

Easy

Odd-one-out: four of the five sentences form a coherent paragraph; one is the misfit. Find the shared narrative thread and the sentence that sits outside it. Theme: ocean plastic is a problem chiefly because marine animals eat it, with knock-on harms.

1

Build the core paragraph: 4–1–5–3. Sentence 4 is the broad opener — plastic in the oceans is “one of the most important and pervasive environmental problems today.” Sentence 1 narrows to why — “primarily because marine animals eat it.” Sentence 5 follows on eating: it “has a number of negative consequences such as the retention of plastic particles in the gut.” Sentence 3 adds a further harm — “aside from clogging up the digestive tracts,” plastic also adsorbs pollutants. This chain (4–1–5–3) flows tightly around eating and its consequences.

2

Test sentence 2. Sentence 2 makes a quantitative point — “the largest numerical proportion of ocean plastic falls in small size fractions.” This is about the size distribution of plastic, not about marine animals eating it or the resulting harms. It introduces an unrelated dimension and breaks the cause-and-consequence chain, so it is the misfit.

The odd one out is sentence 2.

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CAT 2019 Slot 2 VARC Q29: Five sentences related to a topic are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a meaningful and c — Solution | TheCATExam