Sentence completion question [closed]

Question

From the given options, choose the sentence that completes the paragraph in the most appropriate way.

Most people at their first consultation take a furtive look at the surgeon’s hands in the hope of reassurance. Prospective patients look for delicacy, sensitivity, steadiness, perhaps unblemished pallor. On this basis, Hendry Perowne loses a number of cases each year. Generally, he knows it’s about to happen before the patient does: the downward glance repeated, the prepared questions beginning to falter, the overemphatic thanks during the retreat to the door.

1. Other people do not communicate due to their poor observation.
2. Other patients don’t like what they see but are ignorant of their right to go elsewhere.
3. But Perowne himself is not concerned.
4. But others will take their place, he thought.
5. These hands are steady enough, but they are large.

I feel the answer should be 3 as it is a continuation of the context related to Perowne. But the answer book reasons it out to be 2. Can someone help me understand the issue? The explanation in the answer book is as follows.

The paragraph is about what indications patients look for in a doctor, with particular reference to his hands. Hence, the last sentence must be about this. The theme is about what the patients do when they notice a doctor’s hand. So 1 & 4 are ruled out. What Perowne thinks is sequential, but will belong early in the next para, not here. Hence, 3 & 4 are eliminated. On testing through reading, 2 uses the same kind of language as the para, continues the idea of the previous sentence and is in keeping with the theme sentence.

Answer 1

The paragraph is about what indications patients look for in a doctor, with particular reference to his hands. Hence, the last sentence must be about this.

This points to a large difference between "real" English, and English found in a standardized test. Thankfully, in real English, not every paragraph ends with a sentence that summarizes what a paragraph is about; I would hate to endure an entire novel where the author wrote every paragraph in accordance with such silly rules.

The key to getting these questions correct is to understand what the test makers are looking for. Fortunately for you, a test prep book can help you do that. But a test prep book is not a writing guide! I recommend that you thoroughly understand such guidelines in preparation for the test – and then purge them from your memory as soon as you are done. If your goal is to become a proficient writer, some of those inane rules can do as much harm as good.

P.S. I'm inclined to agree with you; #3 sounds like a better option than #2. Rather than enlightening me, the book's explanation merely gave me an eye-roll.

Answer 2

How should you go about figuring the answer to this type of question on a test? For this one, three of the answers contain a fatal flaw which makes them impossible to be correct. This leaves two remaining, one of which is clearly superior.

1: Other people do not communicate due to their poor observation.

This doesn't really make any sense. They may not notice the hands because of their poor observation, but why would that mean that they don't communicate?

2: Other patients don’t like what they see but are ignorant of their right to go elsewhere.

The correct answer.

3: But Perowne himself is not concerned.

Not a complete sentence. While this sentence fragment would be perfectly fine in a piece of fiction writing, it is disqualified from being a correct answer to this test question.

4: But others will take their place, he thought.

This has the wrong verb tense. If it were to fit in the paragraph, it would have to be "But others will take their place, he thinks."

5: These hands are steady enough, but they are large.

There is no easy way to disqualify this sentence, but it doesn't really continue the train of thoughts that precede it. Sentence 2 fits much better.

This is clearly the reasoning that the test designers wanted you to use. Why do I say this? Because the next paragraph in the actual story this passage is from starts "Perowne himself is not concerned." The test designers seem to have added the "But" to make this ineligible to be the correct answer. The test designers also took answer (4) from the next paragraph, and put in the wrong verb tense to make that answer ineligible to be correct.

Answer 3

My professor said "When confronted with either/or questions, the correct answer is always "neither" or "both"".

The paragraph as it stands is much superior to adding any of these tiresome perorations. These test writers don't seem to care about prose style, they just want you to check the right boxes.

Answer 4

The answer book is correct.

What you need to pin down is what the paragraph is about. The answer to that is that it is about 'people' - you get that from the first sentence - who look at a surgeons hands.

That eliminates answer 3 because it is about Perowne; answer 4 because it is about Perowne's thought; and answer 5 because it is about Perowne's hands.

That leaves only answers 1 and 2, which are both about 'people'.

Answer 1 doesn't work because the idea of 'communicate' is not relevant to a paragraph about looking. By elimination that leaves only answer 2, which continues the theme of seeing the surgeons hands.