CAT 2020 Slot 2 — VARC Question 20
The four sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4) below, when properly sequenced would yield a coherent paragraph. Decide on the proper sequencing of the order of the sentences and key in the sequence of the four numbers as your answer:
1. While you might think that you see or are aware of all the changes that happen in your immediate environment, there is simply too much information for your brain to fully process everything.
2. Psychologists use the term ‘change blindness’ to describe this tendency of people to be blind to changes though they are in the immediate environment.
3. It cannot be aware of every single thing that happens in the world around you.
4. Sometimes big shifts happen in front of your eyes and you are not at all aware of these changes.
Answer & solution
Answer: 1342
Easy
For a four-sentence jumble, find the general opening idea, then chase the demonstratives and definitions. The topic is "change blindness": we miss changes around us because the brain cannot process everything, and psychologists have a name for it.
Opener. Sentence 1 introduces the general claim with full context - "While you might think that you see... all the changes... there is simply too much information for your brain to fully process everything." It states the premise the rest will build on.
Mandatory pair 1-3. Sentence 3 begins with "It cannot be aware of every single thing..." - the pronoun "It" refers back to "your brain" in sentence 1, and the line restates 1's idea. So 3 immediately follows 1.
Mandatory pair 4-2. Sentence 4 gives the concrete consequence - "big shifts happen in front of your eyes and you are not at all aware of these changes." Sentence 2 then labels exactly that phenomenon: "Psychologists use the term 'change blindness' to describe this tendency of people to be blind to changes." The demonstrative "this tendency" points straight back to 4, so 4-2 is a locked pair and 2 closes the paragraph by naming the concept.
Sequence the blocks: 13 then 42. The 1-3 block lays the general explanation (brain can't process everything); the 4-2 block moves to the observable effect and its technical name. General explanation before the named consequence gives 1-3-4-2.
Proper order: 1342.
A note on the key
This jumble is genuinely contestable. The two pairs 13 and 42 are firm, but their order can be argued either way - opening with 4 ("Sometimes big shifts happen in front of your eyes...") as an attention-grabbing observation and closing with 13 also reads smoothly, giving 4213. The official answer is 1342, which we adopt; treat 4213 as a defensible alternative.