Sentence misfit or sentence exclusion questions imply figuring out the odd sentence. Here, we are talking about someone or something which does not fit in or that is quite different from the rest. We call that someone or something as a misfit and if it is presented in a sentence, then it is called sentence misfit. Such questions may feature as a Para jumble or sentence rearrangement question in various exams. Let’s understand the right way to approach these questions.
How to identify the odd sentence:
- To identify the misfit sentence, you need to understand the overall context first. Now, to get the overall context, try finding the common subject among all the sentences. The one sentence that does not share the same subject can be your answer. Example:
- Tagore was a social phenomenon of his time and his universal aspirations took him around the globe.
- Tagore knew no geographical boundaries, and believed in universalism.
- Tagore’s universal appeal has its gripping hold even today.
- J.K Rowling's books gained world attention, won multiple awards sold more than 400 million copies only because of her innovative and catchy ideas for a book.
- His book of poems, Gitanjali, which got him the Nobel Prize, has the soul and spirit of India, and yet it bears a universal appeal.
The common subjects in statements A, B, C and E are: Rabindranath Tagore, his greatness and ideologies. Statement D is an exception which talks about J.K. Rowling. Thus, option D is the odd one out.
- The above discussed approach is the simplest way to identify the odd one out. Now looking at the sentence where subject rule does not apply and there is a slight change of theme. How to get away with that? Let’s understand with the help of the following example:
- Economic stresses in such contexts intensify the immediate need for children and overshadow the supposed importance of "family planning.”
- In some societies, having many children is tantamount to creating a large familial work force.
- Imperialist, genocidal policies like coercive sterilization inevitably result in a mistrust of birth control programmes.
- Many expert analyzes point out that the family size is inextricably linked with a number of clearly definable culture-specific phenomena, which may appear strange to a modern, educated mind.
Parajumbles: Concept & Tricks
Here, Statement C represents a related but out-of-context argument while the rest are interlinked with one another. Though the sentences were related to family planning, C talks about Birth control programmes which are though related but a different theme altogether.
- The last concept in sentence misfit seeks a similar behavior as approached for sentence rearrangement. You need to arrange the sentences in the coherent order and the one which you cannot arrange will be the misfit. Example:
- Innocence insisted on too strenuously is tantamount to guilt.
- But it's precisely the problem; the fact that human evil is predictable does not make it excusable.
- It's human nature to want to believe in the rightness of our own actions and intentions.
- Nor does fobbing off the evil on singularly evil individuals like Hitler or bin Laden or Cheney.
Here, three of the four statements are connected together and form a trio. The order will be CBD. Statement A does not fit anywhere and hence, A is the misfit sentence.
Applying the above discussed techniques, practice a number of sentence misfit/exclusion questions.
Verbal Preparation Series