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Question

Difficulty: Very hardSentence Reordering and Placement

The following paragraph is from an essay about the decipherment of ancient scripts:

[1] For decades after their discovery in 1900, the clay tablets of Knossos remained an indecipherable enigma, their script dubbed "Linear B" by archaeologists. [2] Believing that the key lay in mathematical analysis rather than guesswork, classicist Alice Kober meticulously cataloged symbol frequencies on thousands of hand-cut index cards. [3] Her focus eventually narrowed to grammatical inflections, the shifts in word endings that denote grammatical relationships. [4] These grammatical variations, which scholars later named "Kober's triplets," provided the first concrete proof that the script represented an inflected language. [5] By arranging these related characters into a grid, she was able to map relationships between phonetic values long before the script was deciphered.

The writer wants to add the following sentence to the paragraph:
"Specifically, she documented instances where a root word appeared in three distinct variations depending on its grammatical function."

To make this paragraph most logical, this sentence should be placed after which sentence?

  1. A
    Sentence 1
  2. B
    Sentence 2
  3. Sentence 3Answer
  4. D
    Sentence 4

Answer

Sentence 3
The correct answer is the option indicating placement after Sentence 3. Placing the sentence here provides a logical transition. The word 'Specifically' in the target sentence narrows the focus from the general concept of 'grammatical inflections' in Sentence 3 to a detailed explanation of the three variations of a root word. Crucially, the target sentence introduces the 'three distinct variations' that serve as the required antecedent for 'These grammatical variations, which scholars later named "Kober's triplets"' in Sentence 4.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the target sentence for logical, grammatical, and transition clues.
The target sentence contains the transition word 'Specifically' and mentions 'three distinct variations' of a root word, which indicates it must follow a general sentence about grammatical changes and precede a sentence referencing those variations.
Identifying transition words and reference pronouns helps locate where a sentence fits structurally in a paragraph.
2
Identify the sentences in the passage that introduce the general concept of grammatical changes and those that reference specific groups or variations.
Sentence 3 introduces 'grammatical inflections, the shifts in word endings,' which is the general concept. Sentence 4 begins with 'These grammatical variations, which scholars later named "Kober's triplets,"' which is a specific group of three variations.
Finding the general concept and its subsequent reference points narrows down the potential insertion locations.
3
Evaluate the placement of the target sentence between Sentence 3 and Sentence 4.
Placing the target sentence here allows 'Specifically' to elaborate on the 'shifts in word endings' from Sentence 3, and provides the necessary antecedent ('three distinct variations') for the phrase 'These grammatical variations, which... named "Kober's triplets"' in Sentence 4.
Verifying that the target sentence resolves grammatical references and maintains smooth transitions confirms the correct position.

Key Concept

Sentence placement relies on using transition words, identifying pronoun-antecedent relationships, and maintaining a logical progression from general concepts to specific details.
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Topics

Sentence Reordering and Placement

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