The given sentence is missing in the paragraph below. Decide where it best fits among the options 1, 2, 3, or 4 indicated in the paragraph.
Sentence- The region’s Western customers found it hard to believe that Dhaka muslin could possibly have been made by human hands – there were rumours that it was woven by mermaids, fairies and even ghosts.
Once upon the silty banks of the Meghna River, a miracle was spun — a fabric so light it was called “baft-hawa”, or woven air. This was Dhaka Muslin — the world’s most coveted cloth. \(\underline{(1)}\) Handspun from a rare cotton called Phuti Karpas, found nowhere else on Earth, and woven with a 16-step sacred ritual — beginning with cleaning the cotton using the teeth of a river catfish! \(\underline{(2)}\) Every spring, the maple-like leaves pushed up through the grey, silty soil to produce a single daffodil-yellow flower twice a year, which gave way to a snowy floret of cotton fibres. \(\underline{(3)}\) Spun at dawn on boats by sharp-eyed young women, its threads were so fine the elderly could barely see them. Motifs of wildflowers, river breeze, and soul were etched into each piece — some so sleek, a 91-metre bolt could pass through a ring, or a 60’ length fit inside a snuffbox. It draped Greek goddesses, Roman nobles, Mughal emperors, and European aristocrats. Marie Antoinette, Empress Joséphine — even Jane Austen adored its floating grace. \(\underline{(4)}\).

Question

There is a sentence that is missing in the paragraph below. Look at the paragraph and decide where (option 1, 2, 3, or 4) the following sentence would best fit.
Sentence: Understanding central Asia’s role helps developments make more sense not only across Asia but in Europe, the Americas and Africa.
Paragraph: The nations of the Silk Roads are sometimes called ‘developing countries’, but they are actually some of the world’s most highly developed countries, the very crossroads of civilization, in advanced states of disrepair. ___(1)___. These countries lie at the centre of global affairs: they have since the beginning of history. Running across the spine of Asia, they form a web of connections fanning out in every direction, routes along which pilgrims and warriors, nomads and merchants have travelled, goods and produce have been bought and sold, and ideas exchanged, adapted and refined. ___(2)___ .They have carried not only prosperity, but also death and violence, disease and disaster. ___(3)___. The Silk Roads are the world’s central nervous system, connecting otherwise far-flung peoples and places…. ___(4)___. It allows us to see patterns and links, causes and effects that remain invisible if one looks only at Europe, or North America.

Answer 1

Think of the paragraph as building outward, first the myth, then the true process, then the plant, then the spinning, then the famous admirers. A line about people refusing to believe humans made the cloth only makes sense right at the start, immediately after the cloth is introduced as "woven air," because what comes right after that blank explains the real, very human method behind it. Inserting the same line later, in the middle of the description of the cotton plant or after the list of famous wearers, would interrupt an already-flowing idea instead of answering a doubt, so the sentence only fits at blank (1).

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The Correct Option is C

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