Question

Five jumbled up sentences, related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd one out and key in the number of the sentence as your answer:

• A. You can observe the truth of this in every e-business model ever constructed: monopolise and protect data.
• B. Economists and technologists believe that a new kind of capitalism is being created - different from industrial capitalism as was merchant capitalism.
• C. In 1962, Kenneth Arrow, the guru of mainstream economics, said that in a free market economy the purpose of inventing things is to create intellectual property rights.
• D. There is, alongside the world of monopolised information and surveillance, a different dynamic growing up: information as a social good, incapable of being owned or exploited or priced.
• E. Yet information is abundant. Information goods are freely replicable. Once a thing is made, it can be copied and pasted infinitely.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is B

The provided sentences center on the theme of information within the digital economy, specifically addressing its proliferation, ease of replication, protection as intellectual property, and its potential as a social good. For a cohesive paragraph, these sentences require logical sequencing based on these interconnected ideas:

1. Information is inherently abundant and readily replicable; once created, an informational item can be copied endlessly.
2. Kenneth Arrow, a prominent economist, stated in 1962 that in a free market, the creation of intellectual property rights is the primary objective of invention.
3. E-business models are fundamentally built on the principle of monopolizing and protecting data.
4. Conversely, a different paradigm is emerging where information functions as a social good, resistant to ownership, exploitation, or pricing, distinct from the domain of monopolized information and surveillance.

The sentence regarding a new form of capitalism is extraneous, as it introduces a broader economic concept divergent from the specific dynamics of information discussed in the other sentences. Consequently, the outlier sentence is: "Economists and technologists believe that a new kind of capitalism is being created - different from industrial capitalism as was merchant capitalism."