Question

Five jumbled 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 out and key in the number of that sentence as your answer.

• A. About half of all the oxygen we breathe is made near the surface of the ocean by phytoplankton that photosynthesize just like land-dwelling plants.
• B. A team of scientists that includes Boston University experts has discovered they also produce oxygen on the seafloor.
• C. The research team used deep-sea chambers that land on the seafloor and enclose the seawater, sediment, polymetallic nodules, and living organisms.
• D. The discovery is a surprise considering oxygen is typically created by plants and organisms with help from the sun—not by rocks on the ocean floor.
• E. The deep-sea rocks, called polymetallic nodules, don’t only host a surprising number of sea critters.

Hint:

Look for sentences that introduce or explain the main topic, while others support it or provide additional details.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is C

Approach: Use the connector test. Coherent sentences leave fingerprints - pronouns, contrasts, definitions that point at a neighbour. The sentence with no such link to the discovery storyline is the intruder.

Trace the fingerprints: Sentence 2 says scientists found 'they also produce oxygen on the seafloor' - 'also' and 'they' lean on Sentence 1's surface phytoplankton, so $1 \to 2$ is locked. Sentence 4 calls 'the discovery' a surprise - that 'the discovery' is the seafloor oxygen of Sentence 2, so $2 \to 4$. Sentence 5 introduces 'the deep-sea rocks, called polymetallic nodules' and says they 'don't only host sea critters' - the 'not only' sets up that these rocks do something more, namely make oxygen, sealing $4 \to 5$.

Now check Sentence 3: It explains the apparatus - chambers landing on the seafloor enclosing seawater and sediment. It carries no pronoun or connector tying it to the surprise-and-source narrative; it is a stand-alone methods note.

Since 1, 2, 4, 5 form an interlocked discovery story and Sentence 3 only reports technique, Sentence 3 is the outlier.

Answer: 3.