Odd One Out: Extinction of Bo Language

CAT 2023 Slot 3 · Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension · Medium · Verbal Ability

This is a medium Verbal Ability & Reading Comprehension question from the CAT 2023 Slot 3 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.

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.

  1. Boa Senior, who lived through the 2004 tsunami, the Japanese occupation and diseases brought by British settlers, was the last native of the island chain who was fluent in Bo.
  2. The indigenous population has been steadily collapsing since the island chain was colonised by British settlers in 1858 and used for most of the following 100 years as a colonial penal colony.
  3. Taking its name from a now-extinct tribe, Bo is one of the 10 Great Andamanese languages, which are thought to date back to pre-Neolithic human settlement of south-east Asia.
  4. The last speaker of an ancient tribal language has died in the Andaman Islands, breaking a 65,000-year link to one of the world's oldest cultures.
  5. Though the language has been closely studied by researchers of linguistic history, Boa Senior spent the last few years of her life unable to converse with anyone in her mother tongue.
Answer

2

Explanation

Sentence 2 is the odd sentence. The coherent paragraph formed by 4-3-1-5 focuses on the death of Boa Senior and the loss of the Bo language. Sentence 2 focuses on the broader demographic collapse of the indigenous population and penal history.

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