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Difficulty: MediumSentence Reordering and Placement

The following paragraph contains numbered sentences.

[1] During a winter trolley ride in New York City in 1902, Mary Anderson observed that the motorman had to keep the front window open, allowing sleet to blow inside, just to wipe the glass. [2] Upon returning to her home in Alabama, she began sketching designs for a mechanical, hand-operated blade that could clear a window from inside the vehicle. [3] This simple device, patented in 1903, consisted of a lever inside the car that controlled a rubber blade on the outside. [4] However, when she tried to sell the rights to her invention to a prominent firm in 1905, they rejected it. [5] Drivers, the company executives argued, would be dangerously distracted by the motion of the wiping mechanism.

To make the paragraph most logical, the following sentence:

"Their skepticism was rooted in a belief that the device posed a major safety hazard."

should be placed after which sentence?

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

Answer

Sentence 4
The correct option places the sentence after Sentence 4. Sentence 4 introduces a "prominent firm" that "rejected" Mary Anderson's invention. The target sentence's opening phrase, "Their skepticism," directly references the firm's rejection. Furthermore, the target sentence introduces the concern of a "safety hazard," which is then immediately explained in Sentence 5, where the executives argue that drivers would be "dangerously distracted."

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the pronouns and key transition words in the sentence to be placed.
The target sentence starts with "Their skepticism", indicating a need for a plural antecedent representing people who are skeptical, and a context where skepticism or rejection has occurred.
Tracking pronoun references and thematic links is essential for locating where a sentence fits naturally in a paragraph.
2
Scan the paragraph to find a logical antecedent for "Their" and a context of skepticism or rejection.
Sentence 4 mentions that "a prominent firm" (referred to as "they") rejected the invention in 1905. This provides both the plural antecedent ("they" / members of the firm) and the context of rejection/skepticism.
A sentence containing a specific pronoun and reaction must immediately follow the sentence that introduces the actors and their action.
3
Verify that the placement creates a smooth transition to the subsequent sentence.
The target sentence states that the skepticism was about a "safety hazard." The following sentence (Sentence 5) specifies this hazard: the belief that drivers would be "distracted by the motion of the wiping mechanism." The flow is logical and cohesive.
Ensuring the sentence fits both the preceding and succeeding contexts validates the correct placement.

Key Concept

Sentence Reordering and Placement
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Topics

Sentence Reordering and Placement

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