CAT 2023 Slot 2 — VARC Question 20
Five jumbled up sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5), related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd sentence and key in the number of that sentence as your answer.
1. The banning of Northern Lights could be considered a precursor to censoring books for “moral”, world view or religious reasons.
2. Attempts to ban books are attempts to silence authors who have summoned immense courage in telling their stories.
3. Now the banning and challenging of books in the US has escalated to an unprecedented level.
4. The widely acclaimed fantasy novel Northern Lights was banned in some parts of the US, and was the second most challenged book in the US.
5. The American Library Association documented an unparalleled number of reported book challenges in 2022, about 2,500 unique titles.
Answer & solution
Answer: 2
Easy
Four sentences build one chain about the escalating banning of books in the US; the leftover one is the odd sentence.
3 states the trend: banning books in the US has "escalated to an unprecedented level." 5 backs it with data — the ALA documented "an unparalleled number" of challenges in 2022 (~2,500 titles). Pair 3→5 (claim then evidence).
4 gives a concrete example — Northern Lights was banned and was "the second most challenged book." 1 follows up on that same book: banning it "could be considered a precursor to censoring books for moral/religious reasons." Pair 4→1. Chain: 3→5→4→1.
2 is a broad value statement — bans are "attempts to silence authors who summoned immense courage." It is an abstract opinion that fits no link in the factual escalation-then-example chain. It is the odd sentence.
2 is the odd sentence (the paragraph is 3-5-4-1).