Directions: In this section each item consists of six sentences that comprise a passage. The first and sixth sentences are given in the beginning as S1 and S6. The sequence of the middle four sentences has been jumbled up and labelled as P, Q, R and S. You are required to find the proper sequence of the four sentences and mark your response accordingly on the Answer Sheet.
S1: In 1984, two small clay tablets of vaguely rectangular shape were found in Tell Brak, Syria, dating from the fourth millennium BCE.
S6: All our history begins with these two modest tablets as they are among the oldest examples of writing we know.
P: One of the animals may have been a goat, in which case, the other probably was a sheep.
Q: Lying there were these simple, unimpressive objects, each bearing a few discrete markings: a small indentation near the top and some sort of stick-drawn animal in the centre.
R: The indentation, on the other hand, represents, according to archaeologists, the number ten.
S: These two tablets were seen by an expert the year before the Gulf War, in an unostentatious display case in the Archaeological Museum of Baghdad.
- AS Q P R
- BQ S P R
- CQ S R P
- DS Q R P
Explanation
The correct order is S Q P R. S1 reports the tablets’ discovery; S places them in a Baghdad museum display case seen before the Gulf War; Q describes the objects lying there (indentations and stick-drawn animals); P details the animal (goat/sheep); R details the indentation (the number ten); S6 closes on their significance as the oldest writing. This is option (a).