Verbal Question of the Day: 42
OUT OF CONTEXT
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. It would become difficult for China to finance the questionable series of investments that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) demands after factoring in the costs of the trade war.
2. Since March, when the US administration imposed new tariffs on steel and aluminium imports from its trade partners that included Chinese companies, the trade war has become costlier every month.
3. The BRI is like the Hambantota sea port in Sri Lanka, which only offers military significance to China, and is expected to cost upwards of $800 billion.
4.There is a clear advantage for India from the scrap between US President Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China, on trade.
5. Though Trump has claimed it would benefit USA more than hurt it, the economic conflict involves costs for both the countries.
Note: The answer to this question will be posted tomorrow morning as a comment below.
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22 comments
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3
3 as all the other options revolve around trade wars
But option 3 includes variable like military etc.
Correct, Priyanka! 🙂
3
3 is the answer
4
Reason
The points broadly talk about economic conflict between China and USA which resulted in trade war.
1- The point talks about economic war between China and USA and impact on China
2- Trade war is costlier so continues idea of 1.
3- BRI is of military importance to china and cost increases so again economy and impact on China is talked.
5- Trump ( US) perspective and impact on both.
4- only option talking about some other country and their perspective.
Hi Mayank, take a look at the answer’s explanation below.
4
It takes courage to go with the minority opinion, Abhipri. I appreciate that 🙂
See the answer’s explanation in my comment below, Abhipri. 🙂
3
Did you notice that option 4 was on its way to becoming the popular choice, Richa? 🙂
4
All other options relate to China and USA and the effects that a potential trade war could have on the countries.
4 talks about how India can benefit from the war which in my opinion is the odd one out.
In reality, sometimes the premises which we base our decisions on can be disputable. Well tried though, Ridhima 🙂
4
Here India has a profit.
And India has a profit in trade war.
Do take a look at the answer’s explanation below, Nirmal.
The answer is sentence 3. All the other sentences either explicitly mention or allude to a trade war.
Arushi, Priyanka, Amitayu, Aditi and Richa- excellent!
Some students have mentioned the reasoning behind option 4 being the odd one out is that all other sentences only talk of the trade war between two countries: China and USA, while sentence 4 mentions a third country- India. This is not watertight since sentence 1 and 3 contain no reference to the second country i.e.USA.
Saying that sentence 4 is the only one that does not speak of the effects that a potential trade war could have on the countries is also not indisputable, since sentence 3 does not fit into this theme.
If anyone has a doubt, please feel free to write back 🙂
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Sir, I wanted to clarify that 4 is the right option because the underlying theme is how different countries are being affected by the costs of the trade war. And 3 is wrong because it is talking about the BRI and it’s cost.
I’m glad you’ve got back to me with your query, Abhipri.
Let’s say that option 4 is the answer, given your reasoning.
I agree that the costs of the trade war is a strong underlying theme in sentences 1, 2 and 5. If you read sentence 3 ‘independently’, which part of it necessarily points to a relation between the BRI’s cost and the trade war’s cost? As I see it, sentence 3 contains only factual information about the BRI’s cost and the point about its military significance, but it has no association with the trade war’s cost. In case you think that I am missing a link here, do let me know 🙂
Now it’s clear, there is no association between BRI’s cost and the costs of the trade war in 3. I missed that in my observation.
An honest mistake. Don’t worry about it.