CAT 2020 Slot 3 — VARC Question 19
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. Each one personified a different aspect of good fortune.
2. The others were versions of popular Buddhist gods, Hindu gods and Daoist gods.
3. Seven popular Japanese deities, the Shichi Fukujin, were considered to bring good luck and happiness.
4. Although they were included in the Shinto pantheon, only two of them, Daikoku and Ebisu, were indigenous Japanese gods.
Answer & solution
Answer: 3142
Easy
Find the opener (a sentence that needs no prior context and introduces the subject), then lock the mandatory pairs created by pronouns and back-references. Here the phrase “each one” in sentence 1 must point back to a group already named, and “the others” in sentence 2 must follow a sentence that singled some out.
Fix the opener (3). Sentence 3 introduces the subject fresh — “Seven popular Japanese deities, the Shichi Fukujin, were considered to bring good luck and happiness.” It names the group and so cannot depend on anything before it. It opens the paragraph.
Pair 3–1. Sentence 1 says “Each one personified a different aspect of good fortune.” “Each one” needs a counted group to refer to — the “seven deities” of 3. So 1 elaborates 3, giving the unit 3–1.
Pair 4–2. Sentence 4 notes that “only two of them, Daikoku and Ebisu, were indigenous Japanese gods.” Sentence 2 then completes the split: “The others were versions of popular Buddhist gods, Hindu gods and Daoist gods.” The two-vs-others contrast forces 4–2, in that order.
Join the blocks. The 3–1 block names and characterises the seven; the 4–2 block then classifies them (two indigenous, the rest borrowed). Characterisation precedes classification, so 3–1 leads into 4–2, giving 3–1–4–2.
The coherent order is 3142.