CAT 2020 Slot 2 — VARC Question 23
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. It also has four movable auxiliary telescopes 1.8 m in diameter.
2. Completed in 2006, the Very Large Telescope (VLT) has four reflecting telescopes,8.2 m in diameter that can observe objects 4 billion times weaker than can normally be seen with the naked eye.
3. This configuration enables one to distinguish an astronaut on the Moon.
4. When these are combined with the large telescopes, they produce what is called interferometry: a simulation of the power of a mirror 16 m in diameter and the resolution of a telescope of 200 m.
Answer & solution
Answer: 2143
Easy
Find the sentence that introduces the subject, then follow the additions ("also", "these") and the resulting effect. The topic is the Very Large Telescope (VLT) and what its combined optics can achieve.
Opener - sentence 2. Sentence 2 names and dates the subject: "Completed in 2006, the Very Large Telescope (VLT) has four reflecting telescopes, 8.2 m in diameter..." Only this sentence introduces the VLT, so the paragraph must start here.
Pair 2-1. Sentence 1 begins "It also has four movable auxiliary telescopes 1.8 m in diameter." The word "also" adds a second feature to the four main telescopes just described in 2, so 1 follows 2 directly.
Pair 1-4. Sentence 4 says "When these are combined with the large telescopes, they produce... interferometry." "These" refers to the auxiliary telescopes just introduced in 1, so 4 follows 1.
Closer - sentence 3. Sentence 3 - "This configuration enables one to distinguish an astronaut on the Moon" - states the result of the combined setup described in 4, so it ends the paragraph. The chain is 2-1-4-3.
Proper order: 2143.