Para Jumbles: Solved Examples | Verbal Ability (VA) & Reading Comprehension (RC) - CAT PDF Download

Example - 1

1. It always seems like there’s a mountain between us and our dreams.
2. People who want to achieve something great, reach a lofty goal, or start something new will often hesitate before taking the leap.
3. That little bit of hesitation is fine – it’s not wise to do anything monumental without pausing to make important considerations.
4. The hesitation becomes a problem when it transmutes into fear or anxiety that holds you back from doing something you’re perfectly capable of doing.
5. If fear is standing in the way of your success, it’s time to evaluate the situation, work towards resolving that fear, and do the thing you’ve always dreamed of doing.
Ans: 12345
Sol: After reading all the statements carefully we can say that the context of this paragraph is out of fear/hesitation that we face in our daily lives and how it stands between you and your success.
We can start the re-arrangement with statement 1 which gives a direction towards the context of the paragraph we can build upon. Statement 2 should follow next as it further explains the metaphoric Mountain mentioned in statement 1 and says that people often hesitate before taking a leap. Now Statement 3 should follow as it further explains that a little bit of explanation is fine as makes us consider our actions. Here, Statement 4 should follow as it again follows the thought process and warns as hesitation becomes a problem when it transmutes into fear or anxiety. Finally, we can close the re-arrangement with Statement 5 in end explaining that if the fear mentioned in Statement 4 is standing in the way of your success, it’s time to evaluate the situation and work towards resolving that fear.

Example - 2

1. 20% of the global population is dealing with this symptom and has to take a sleeping pill on a daily basis to get some rest.
2. If you are suffering from insomnia and have to rely on sleeping pills, you are not alone.
3. While there could be multiple causes of insomnia, habitual and psychological factors significantly influence your sleep patterns.
4. Studies demonstrate that the mobile blue light inhibits our sleep and also has a negative impact on our long-term health. It is highly recommended that you avoid your mobile light at all cost one hour before you fall asleep.
5. Fortunately, these are within our control to change. You want to pay extra attention to optimising your home set up especially if you live in busy metropolitan areas.
Ans: 21354
Sol: After carefully reading all statements, we can say that the paragraph is about the causes of insomnia. We can start the re-arrangement with Statement 2 introducing the subject of discussion and suggesting that it is a common disease and continuing in Statement 1 saying that around 20% of the global population is dealing with this symptom. Now, Statement 3 will follow next further explaining more causes and how can it influence your sleep patterns. Statement 5 should follow next as it guides as that these are within our control to change and we can optimize our home set up especially if we live in busy metropolitan areas. Finally, Statement 4 can close our re-arrangement as it finally gives more data on the problem and tells us that the blue light from mobiles has a negative impact on our health ad we should avoid the same one hour before we fall asleep.

Example - 3

Take up a sample problem and understand how solving Para-jumbles operates. Go through the following set of sentences labeled A to F:
A. The book was Jonah Lehrer’s How We Decide and the epiphany was that consciousness could reside in the brain.
B. He was a twenty-year-old philosophy major at Hamilton College.
C. In January 2010, while driving from Chicago to Minneapolis, Sam McNerney played an audiobook and had an epiphany.
D. The quest for an empirical understanding of consciousness has long preoccupied neurobiologists.
E. The standard coursework-ancient, modern, and contemporary philosophy-enthralled him.
F. But McNerney was no neurobiologist.
Ans: CADFBE
Sol: In this case, the right answer is option 4.
The first observations we make for this question are:
Which are these answer options?
The pair ‘BE’ is present in every answer option. This is what option analysis is: picking out clues from the answer options. By not even reading the statements, we have managed to figure out one set of connected statements.
The second thing we learn from answer options is that the first sentence of the question is either D or C
All you need to do is read these two sentences and establish which forms the better opening for the given paragraph.
The next thing that you actually need to do is to establish connections between various statements. Look carefully at the underlined sets of words in this case:
The book was Jonah Lehrer’s How We Decide and the epiphany was that consciousness could reside in the brain.
He was a twenty-year-old philosophy major at Hamilton College.
In January 2010, while driving from Chicago to Minneapolis, Sam McNerney played an audio book and had an epiphany.
The quest for an empirical understanding of consciousness has long preoccupied neurobiologists.
The standard coursework-ancient, modern, and contemporary philosophy-enthralled him.
But McNerney was no neurobiologist.

Example - 4

A. Although there are large regional variations, it is not infrequent to find a large number of people sitting here and there and doing nothing.
B. Once in office, they receive friends and relatives who feel free to call any time without prior appointment.
C. While working, one is struck by the slow and clumsy actions and reactions, indifferent attitudes, procedure rather than outcome orientation, and the lack of consideration for others.
D. Even those who are employed often come late to the office and leave early unless they are forced to be punctual.
E. Work is not intrinsically valued in India.
F. Quite often people visit ailing friends and relatives or go out of their way to help them in their personal matters even during office hours.
Ans: EADBFC
Sol: Look at the personal pronoun “they” in sentence B: Once in office, they receive friends and relatives who feel free to call any time without prior appointment. This they must be referring to some people. The reference to some people only comes in sentences A, D, and F. Therefore, one of the sentences will come before sentence B. Let’s see the link AB, DB, and FB;

Link AB- Although there are large regional variations, it is not infrequent to find a large number of people sitting here and there and doing nothing. Once in office, they receive friends and relatives who feel free to call any time without prior appointment.

Link DB- Even those who are employed often come late to the office and leave early unless they are forced to be punctual. Once in office, they receive friends and relatives who feel free to call any time without a prior appointment.

Link FB- Quite often people visit ailing friends and relatives or go out of their way to help them in their personal matters even during office hours. Once in office, they receive friends and relatives who feel free to call any time without a prior appointment.

Which of these links makes sense? Only link DB seems coherent. Now, we examine the options with link DB. We see that options 1 and 3 have link DB in them. Also, both the options have link ADBF. Therefore, ADBF is a link. Now we only need to place sentences E and C. We can do that by reading the sentences in the order given in options 1 and 3.

Direction: The sentences given in the question, when properly sequenced, form a coherent paragraph. Each sentence is labeled with a letter. Choose the most logical order of sentences from the given choices to construct a coherent paragraph.

Example - 5

A. It conceived of the gods as blissful and immortal, yet material, beings made of atoms, inhabiting the empty spaces between worlds in the vastness of infinite space, too far away from the earth to have any interest in what man was doing.
B. In modern popular usage, an epicure is a connoisseur of the arts of life and the refinements of sensual pleasures, especially of good food and drink, attributable to a misunderstanding of the Epicurean doctrine, as promulgated by Christian polemicists.
C. It can be argued that the philosophy is atheistic on a practical level, but avoids the charge of Atheism on the theoretical level, thus avoiding the fate of Socrates, who was tried and executed for the Atheism of his beliefs.
D. Epicureanism emphasizes the neutrality of the gods and their non-interference with human lives, although it did not deny the existence of gods, despite some tendencies towards Atheism.
Ans: DACB
Sol: 1. D and B seem to be the contenders for the opening sentence. 2 is ruled out. However, A cannot follow B as “it” in A has no antecedent in B. Thus, 3 is ruled out. 4 is ruled out for the same reason as A follows B, whereas A should directly follow D as the “it” in A refers to Epicureanism. Thus, 1 is the best sequence.

Example - 6

A. The most contentious part of all this is the definition of justification, and there are several schools of thought on the subject.
B. According to Evidentialism, what makes a belief justified in this sense is the possession of evidence – a belief is justified to the extent that it fits a person’s evidence.
C. Different varieties of Reliabilism suggest that either justification is not necessary for knowledge provided it is a reliably-produced true belief or justification is required but any reliable cognitive process is sufficient justification.
D. Yet another school, Infallibilism, holds that a belief must not only be true and justified, but that the justification of the belief must necessitate its truth, so that the justification for the belief must be infallible.
Sol: 3. It is evident that A is the opening sentence as it is the only statement that mentions that there are several schools of thought on the definition of justification (the other statements being the different schools of thought). Thus, 1 and 2 are out. D is the likely closing sentence as the phrase “yet another school” makes it highly unlikely for D to precede B or come between B and C. Hence, 3 is the best sequence.

Example - 7

A. Except that the performance that they’re rewarding is industry performance, not company performance.
B. It seems counter-intuitive, then, that company boards and shareholders of most firms approve those packages.
C. A closer look, however, indicates that by endorsing performance-insensitive compensation packages, broadly diversified investors are indeed incentivizing CEOs for good performance.
D. Top management compensation packages guarantee a high level of pay, but are often only weakly linked to the performance of the firm relative to its industry competitors.
Ans: DBCA
Sol: The term “counter-intuitive” in B refers to the fact mentioned in D. Thus B follows D. C goes on to contradict B by pointing out that compensation is actually linked to performance albeit of a different sort. A takes it up from there. Thus, 3 is the best sequence.

Example - 8

A. It’s not hard to see why this might be.
B. To many, political lobbying is seen as a way to advance special interests at the expense of the greater good.
C. So when it comes to lobbying on climate change, the prevailing public view is that most firms lobby against climate regulations because greater regulation threatens industry.
D. Consider the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country’s largest lobbying organization, which spent over $90 million lobbying against climate change legislation in 2014.
E. That same year, one of the highest-polluting utilities, Southern Company, spent an estimated $9 million on climate change lobbying.
Ans: BCADE
Sol: B comes across as the opening sentence. C logically follows from B as C is a conclusion drawn from B. A indicates that an explanation for the situation in C will follow. D and E explain why the prevailing public view in D is “that most firms lobby against climate regulations because greater regulation threatens industry.” Thus 1 is the best sequence.

Example - 9

A. As Alexander said, gifted leaders do not just gather information, they actively exploit and manipulate the assumptions of the other side.
B. Hannibal of the Alps did not have better information than did the marauding Mongols.
C. Knowing that assumption, Hannibal had all that was necessary to surprise the enemy — and overwhelm them.
D. One thing that Hannibal of the Alps knew was that the Mongols absolutely assumed that nobody would attack Azaria from the desert as to do so would be simply suicidal.
E. You may lack for capital or manpower but who knows what insane information the opposition might be working from?
Ans: EABDC
Sol: E and A begin the paragraph and the other three sentences constitute an example to justify the idea presented by E and A. Hence EA will precede the example. Between E and A, A should be placed immediately before the example since the example focuses on the decision taken by the gifted leader, Hannibal of the Alps, and A too talks of how gifted leaders exploit the assumptions of the other side. Thus 3 is the best sequence.