IPMAT Indore 2022 · Verbal Ability · Question 30

Step 1 — find the opener. Sentence 4 introduces both the subject and its name: “Japanese artisans have been making ceramics, known as Yakimono since prehistoric times.” It has no backward reference.

The others cannot open: 1 says “these creations”, 3 says “them”, and 2 begins “However”.

Step 2 — follow the chronology. The paragraph moves forward in time:

4 — prehistoric times

1 — “The popularity of these creations grew… in the 16th century”

3 — “Modern shops… display thousands of them”

Each step also carries a backward reference to the one before, confirming the order.

Step 3 — the closer. Sentence 2 begins “However, savvy tourists find the best bargains… in Tokyo’s Kitchen Town.” It qualifies sentence 3’s touristy shops by pointing elsewhere, so it must follow 3 directly.

The sequence:

4\to 1\to 3\to 2

Answer: 4132

Shortcut. This paragraph is ordered by time, and the time markers are explicit: prehistoric (4) → 16th century (1) → modern (3). Sorting on those three words gets you most of the way with no analysis.

Then However (2) must come last, because it contrasts with the modern tourist shops of 3.

A caution worth repeating: chronology is a reliable guide here because the paragraph is a straightforward history. In a paragraph that corrects a received view — like the 2023 Visakhapatnam jumble, which mentions 1857 before 1780 — the argument, not the calendar, sets the order. Check which kind of paragraph you have before trusting the dates.