CAT 2020 Slot 1 — VARC Question 25
Five jumbled up sentences, related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd one out and key in the number of the sentence as your answer:
1. For feminists, the question of how we read is inextricably linked with the question of what we read.
2. Elaine Showalter’s critique of the literary curriculum is exemplary of this work.
3. Androcentric literature structures the reading experience differently depending on the gender of the reader.
4. The documentation of this realization was one of the earliest tasks undertaken by feminist critics.
5. More specifically, the feminist inquiry into the activity of reading begins with the realization that the literary canon is androcentric, and that this has a profoundly damaging effect on women readers.
Answer & solution
Answer: 3
Easy
Fix the shared theme, then chain by connectives and pronouns; the sentence that states a self-standing general claim rather than advancing the chain is the misfit. Theme: feminist criticism links what we read to how we read — beginning from the realization that the canon is androcentric.
Opener: 1. “For feminists, the question of how we read is inextricably linked with the question of what we read.” A clean topic statement that frames the whole discussion.
1→5 (“More specifically”). 5 begins “More specifically, the feminist inquiry … begins with the realization that the literary canon is androcentric … damaging … to women readers.” “More specifically” sharpens the general claim in 1, so 1→5.
5→4→2. 4 picks up the “realization” from 5: “The documentation of this realization was one of the earliest tasks undertaken by feminist critics.” 2 then gives an example of that work: “Elaine Showalter’s critique … is exemplary of this work.” The chain 5→4→2 is locked by “this realization” and “this work”.
Test 3 — the misfit. 3 states a free-standing generalization: “Androcentric literature structures the reading experience differently depending on the gender of the reader.” It has no connective or pronoun tying it into the 1–5–4–2 thread about feminist critics documenting and exemplifying the realization. It stands apart.
The coherent paragraph is 1–5–4–2; the odd one out is sentence 3. Key in 3.