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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 legal status of resources mined in space remains ambiguous; and while the market for asteroid minerals is currently nonexistent, this is likely to change as technical hurdles diminish.
  2. Outer space is a commons, and all of it is open for exploration, however, space law developed in the 1950s and 60s is state-centric and arguably ill-suited to a commercial future.
  3. Laws adopted by the US and Luxembourg are first steps, but they only protect firms from competing claims by their compatriots; a Chinese company will not be bound by US law.
  4. Critics say the US is conferring rights that it has no authority to confer; Russia in particular has condemned this, citing the US' disrespect for international law.
  5. At issue now is commercial activity, as private firms rather than nation states look to space for profit.

Entered answer:

Solution

✅ Correct Answer: 4

From passage: "At issue now is commercial activity, as private firms rather than nation states look to space for profit" and "The legal status of resources mined in space remains ambiguous"

The main topic is clearly about space mining rights and how laws are changing from old government-focused rules to new commercial needs.

Let us trace the logical flow: Commercial space activity is growing -> Legal status is unclear -> Old laws don't work for business -> New laws have limits


🟢 Sentences 1, 2, 3, 5 form a coherent paragraph:

  • Sentence 5: Sets up the issue (commercial space activity)
  • Sentence 1: Explains the legal problem (ambiguous rights)
  • Sentence 2: Why old laws don't work (state-centric, not commercial)
  • Sentence 3: Problems with new laws (only protect same-country companies)

🔴 Sentence 4 is the odd one out: It talks about general criticism of US international law behavior, but doesn't specifically connect to space mining or asteroid resources. While it mentions "rights," it could be about any international issue, not necessarily space.

The other sentences use specific space terms like "asteroid minerals," "mined in space," and "space for profit." Sentence 4 is too vague and general about international law disputes.

Answer: 4

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