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.
- Talk was the most common way for enslaved men and women to subvert the rules of their bondage, to gain more agency than they were supposed to have.
- Even in conditions of extreme violence and unfreedom, their words remained ubiquitous, ephemeral, irrepressible, and potentially transgressive.
- Slaves came from societies in which oaths, orations, and invocations carried great potency, both between people and as a connection to the all-powerful spirit world.
- Freedom of speech and the power to silence may have been preeminent markers of white liberty in Colonies, but at the same time, slavery depended on dialogue: slaves could never be completely muted.
- Slave-owners obsessed over slave talk, though they could never control it, yet feared its power to bind and inspire—for, as everyone knew, oaths, whispers, and secret conversations bred conspiracy and revolt.
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.
- Talk was the most common way for enslaved men and women to subvert the rules of their bondage, to gain more agency than they were supposed to have.
- Even in conditions of extreme violence and unfreedom, their words remained ubiquitous, ephemeral, irrepressible, and potentially transgressive.
- Slaves came from societies in which oaths, orations, and invocations carried great potency, both between people and as a connection to the all-powerful spirit world.
- Freedom of speech and the power to silence may have been preeminent markers of white liberty in Colonies, but at the same time, slavery depended on dialogue: slaves could never be completely muted.
- Slave-owners obsessed over slave talk, though they could never control it, yet feared its power to bind and inspire—for, as everyone knew, oaths, whispers, and secret conversations bred conspiracy and revolt.
Entered answer:
Solution
Sentences 1, 2, 4, 5: All focus on slave speech during slavery - how they used talk, how owners feared it, how it couldn't be stopped
- Sentence 3: Talks about where slaves came from before slavery and their original societies
From passage: "Slaves came from societies in which oaths, orations, and invocations carried great potency, both between people and as a connection to the all-powerful spirit world."
The key insight -> Sentence 3 shifts to cultural background (spirit world, original societies) while others stay focused on speech during slavery.
How to eliminate easily:
🟢 Sentence 3 is the odd one -> context-shift -> brings in "spirit world" and "societies they came from" which isn't discussed anywhere else. All other sentences stay focused on slave talk during slavery, not before it.
The other four sentences (1, 2, 4, 5) connect smoothly -> They discuss how slave talk was used for resistance -> how it couldn't be controlled -> why owners feared it -> how it remained powerful despite attempts to silence it.
Answer: 3