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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. Boa Senior, who lived through the tsunami, the Japanese occupation and diseases brought by British settlers, was the last native of the island chain who was fluent in Bo.
  2. The indigenous population has been steadily collapsing since the island chain was colonised by British settlers in 1858 and used for most of the following 100 years as a colonial penal colony.
  3. Taking its name from a now-extinct tribe, Bo is one of the 10 Great Andamanese languages, which are thought to date back to pre-Neolithic human settlement of south-east Asia.
  4. The last speaker of an ancient tribal language has died in the Andaman Islands, breaking a 65,000-year link to one of the world's oldest cultures.
  5. Though the language has been closely studied by researchers of linguistic history, Boa Senior spent the last few years of her life unable to converse with anyone in her mother tongue.

Entered answer:

Solution

βœ… Correct Answer: 2

Step 1: Find the main theme -> Read through all sentences and see what story they're telling together.

Step 2: Look for the sentence that talks about something different or goes off-topic.


From passage: "The last speaker of an ancient tribal language has died in the Andaman Islands, breaking a 65,000-year link to one of the world's oldest cultures."

The main story here is about Boa Senior and the Bo language. Let us trace this:

Sentence 4 -> tells us the last speaker died

Sentence 1 -> tells us who this person was (Boa Senior)

Sentence 3 -> explains what the Bo language is

Sentence 5 -> gives us sad details about her final years

These 4 sentences tell a complete story about one specific person and one specific language.


Now let's check what doesn't fit:

πŸ”΄ Sentence 2 -> scope-error -> talks about the entire indigenous population decline since 1858, not specifically about Boa Senior or the Bo language. It's too broad and shifts focus from the personal story of one language dying to general population statistics.

🟒 Sentences 1, 3, 4, 5 -> all stay focused on the specific story of Boa Senior and the Bo language.

The key insight: While sentence 2 gives historical background, it talks about all indigenous people instead of staying focused on the Bo language story. It's like suddenly switching from talking about one person's death to talking about a whole group's problems.

Answer: 2

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