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Sign Language Odd One Out

CAT 2019 Slot 1 · Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension · Medium · Verbal Ability

This is a medium Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension question from the CAT 2019 Slot 1 paper. It tests Verbal Ability. The full answer key and a step-by-step explanation are below — try it yourself first, then reveal the solution.

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Five sentences related to a topic are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a meaningful and coherent short paragraph. Identify the odd one out. Choose its number as your answer and key it in.

  1. His idea to use sign language was not a completely new idea as Native Americans used hand gestures to communicate with other tribes.
  2. Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, for example, observed that men who are deaf are incapable of speech.
  3. People who were born deaf were denied the right to sign a will as they were "presumed to understand nothing; because it is not possible that they have been able to learn to read or write."
  4. Pushback against this prejudice began in the 16th century when Pedro Ponce de León created a formal sign language for the hearing impaired.
  5. For millennia, people with hearing impairments encountered marginalization because it was believed that language could only be learned by hearing the spoken word.
Answer

2

Explanation

Sentences 5, 3, 4, 1 form a coherent narrative about the historical marginalization of deaf people and Pedro Ponce de León's 16th-century creation of formal sign language (and antecedents). Sentence 2 is an isolated historical observation by Aristotle that does not fit into the core 5-3-4-1 sequence.

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