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Professional and Subprofessional · Civil Service Exam

Paragraph organization

You are given a paragraph's sentences out of order and asked to put them back. Exactly one order is right.

Find the sentence that can stand alone first. It introduces something the others refer back to, and it will not contain a pronoun or a connective pointing at anything earlier.

Then work forwards. Every remaining sentence carries something that points backwards - `this arrangement`, `the repair`, `they` - and belongs immediately after whatever it points at.

Check the last sentence separately. A closing sentence usually looks back on everything before it, which is why putting it first is the commonest wrong answer on offer.

Worked examples

Try these, then read why.

Written for this platform and generated from the same bank the practice sets draw on. Every wrong option is explained, because knowing why a distractor was tempting is most of the learning.

Arrange the sentences below into the most logical paragraph.

1. Retrieval times fell sharply once the last folder had been moved.
2. The records section moved from folders arranged by date to folders arranged by surname.
3. Nobody in the section has asked to go back.
4. The new system took a week of evenings to put in place.
  1. A3-2-4-1
  2. B2-4-1-3 (correct)
  3. C1-2-3-4
  4. D3-1-4-2

Find the sentence that can stand on its own first: it will introduce something the others refer back to. Here that is 2, and the order follows from it because 'the new system' has no meaning until the change to it has been described. Then check each remaining sentence for a word that points backwards - a pronoun, a demonstrative, or a connective - and place it after whatever it points at.

  • A This opens with the sentence that looks back on everything else, which cannot come first.
  • C This is the order the sentences are already printed in, which the item asks you to change.
  • D This runs the paragraph backwards, so every reference points at a sentence that has not been read yet.

Practise this properly.

Three examples show you the format. Finding out whether paragraph organization is actually costing you marks takes a measured set, which is what the free diagnostic is for.

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