Sentence Rearrangement
🔒 Log in to trackTime-sequence chains
🔒 Log in to trackNarrative rearrangements (stories, incidents, history) run on the clock. Fix the chain with:
| Marker | Position signal |
|---|---|
| One day / Long ago / In 1947 / Last winter | earliest event |
| Soon / Then / After that / Meanwhile | next events |
| By midnight / By dawn / Within a week | result-time of the ongoing event |
| The next morning / The following day | day boundary |
| Now / Today / These days | present contrast, near the end |
| Ever since / Since then | after the turning point |
Build the timeline before touching options: number the events inside P, Q, R, S (e.g. flood → homes flooded → villagers moved → boats ferried → rescue arrived → normal life). The letter string is just the timeline written in the parts' labels.
Verb-tense cross-check: past continuous often paints the background (was raining), simple past the events (came, fell), past perfect the earlier events (had left). A chain that puts a past-perfect event AFTER the simple-past event it caused is broken.
The day-boundary trick: 'That night … By dawn …' — any 'by + time' part usually belongs after the action it caps, not before. Options often place 'By midnight' first; it caps the flooding, so it follows the flooding sentence.
Three layers of time
A narrative item gives you time information at three levels. Use as many as you need:
- Markers — dates and time words: Last December, In 2008, A few days later, That night, By dawn, The next morning, Today.
- Tense — past perfect (had left) for earlier events, simple past for the main events, present (Today, only tourists climb...) for the end.
- Cause and effect — the fire must start before the engines arrive; the lander must fail before it is redesigned. Markers are the most reliable. When they are missing, use tense; when tense does not help, use cause and effect.
Relative markers need an anchor
'Eleven years later', 'A few days later', 'Within ten minutes of the restart', 'On the eighth day' all measure from an earlier event. They cannot come first. Find the event they count from and place them after it: 'Eleven years later' needs 'In 2008'; 'the restart' needs 'half-time'.
By-phrases close a phase
'By dawn, the flames had been put out.' 'By the final whistle, we had won.' A by-phrase describes where a stretch of action ended up, so it follows the actions inside that stretch. Setters often place it first in the wrong options.
Flashbacks in the past perfect
'When Anil reached the station, the platform was empty. The express had left ten minutes earlier. He had missed it because he had overslept.' The past perfect parts explain the scene, and the story returns to the simple past afterwards ('Cursing his bad luck, he checked the board'). Keep the flashback parts together, directly after the scene they explain.
Process and instruction passages
Recipes, procedures and application steps use First -> Next / Then -> After that -> Finally. When the markers are partly missing, use what each step needs: you cannot book an appointment before registering, and the officials cannot check documents before the appointment exists. 'At the appointment' needs a part that mentions booking it.
Biography and history
Lives and events run in date order, but look for pointer words too: 'There she earned a doctorate' needs the part naming the country; 'Her second mission' needs the first one. Exam biographies often skip years, so rely on 'first', 'second', 'later' and 'then' as well as dates.
Question types you will see
Each type: how to recognise it, the method step by step, and one question to try.
Explicit time and date markers
Parts carry dates or time words: Last December, In 2008, Eleven years later, In August 2023, As soon as they reached.
Underline every time word.
Place fixed dates in order; attach each relative marker after its anchor.
Fill in any part without a marker by cause and effect.
Why it works: the markers put the events in order before you even read the options.
Parts: In 2008, Chandrayaan-1 ... / Eleven years later, Chandrayaan-2's lander crashed / Scientists studied the failure / In August 2023, Chandrayaan-3 landed.
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2008 -> 'eleven years later' -> 'the failure' -> 2023: the markers and one pointer word fix the order.
By-phrases and day boundaries
One part begins with By dawn / By the final whistle / By midnight, or with That night / The next morning.
Find the actions the by-phrase sums up and place it after them.
Place day-boundary parts (the next morning) after everything from the day before.
Check that S6 continues from the last part.
Why it works: a by-phrase describes the result of the actions before it, so it can never come first.
S1: A fire broke out late on Saturday night. Parts: shopkeepers rushed out / engines arrived within twenty minutes / By dawn, the flames were out / Later that morning, officials counted the damage.
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People nearby act first, then the engines; 'By dawn' sums up the firefighting; 'later that morning' comes after dawn.
Tense as a clock (past perfect flashback)
Parts mix had + V3 (had left, had built, had attacked) with simple past and present; there are few time words.
Past perfect parts = earlier events or background; keep them together in order.
Simple past parts continue the main story after them.
Present-tense parts (Today...) come last.
Why it works: tense shows the order of events even when there are no time words.
S1: The old fort stood silent. Parts: a king had built it / armies had attacked it / over time the route shifted / today only tourists climb it.
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had built -> had attacked -> simple past 'shifted' -> present 'Today'.
Process steps
The passage explains how to do something (a paper boat, a passport application) with First/Next/Then/Finally or steps that depend on each other.
Use First/Finally to fix the ends.
For steps without markers, ask which step each one needs before it.
A step that mentions something (the appointment) comes after the step that creates it.
Why it works: each step depends on the one before, so the order is forced.
Parts: registers on the portal / After paying the fee, books an appointment / At the appointment, officials check documents / A police verification follows.
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Register -> pay and book -> the appointment -> verification: each step needs the one before it.
Shortcuts that save time
Write the 4–6 events as a numbered list, then map numbers to letters. The string writes itself.
Past perfect = earlier; past continuous = background; simple past = the event line. Use tenses to order events when time words are missing.
'By midnight/By dawn' closes the phase it describes — it follows, never opens, the event chain.
Mistakes to avoid
Where most students lose marks on this subtopic.
Placing 'Now/Today' early in a story that ends in the present.
Ordering by the order the parts are listed, not by the events' clock.
Ignoring 'the next morning' — a hard day-boundary marker.
Letting a result-time phrase open the chain.
Quick revision
Read this the night before the exam.
Use markers first, then tense, then cause and effect.
'Eleven years later', 'a few days later' and 'the restart' need an earlier event before them.
By-phrases (by dawn, by the final whistle) come after the actions they sum up.
Past perfect = flashback; keep those parts together, straight after the scene.
Processes: each step needs the one before it — you cannot book before you register.
Practice: 12 questions
Sets of 10, mixed across the question types above. Every answer has a step-by-step explanation.
Topic test · 12 questions
Suggested time 9 min · wrong answers go to your mistake notebook automatically.