Question 21

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:
1. The legal status of resources mined in space remains ambiguous; and while the market for asteroid minerals is currently nonexistent, this is likely to change as technical hurdles diminish.
2. Outer space is a commons, and all of it is open for exploration, however, space law developed in the 1950s and 60s is state-centric and arguably ill-suited to a commercial future.
3. Laws adopted by the US and Luxembourg are first steps, but they only protect firms from competing claims by their compatriots; a Chinese company will not be bound by US law.
4. Critics say the US is conferring rights that it has no authority to confer; Russia in particular has condemned this, citing the US’ disrespect for international law.
5. At issue now is commercial activity, as private firms—rather than nation states — look to space for profit.


Correct Answer: 4

Solution

A brief reading of the sentences suggests that the paragraph is about the inadequacy of laws about commercial activities in space in the wake of rapid technological developments in the same field. All sentences, other than 4, talk about this inadequacy or highlight why the laws are inadequate. Option 4 is out of context here, as it talks about the US disrespecting international law. It does not relate to the inadequacy of space law for commercial activities, and hence, is the answer.

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