CAT Odd Sentence Out Questions with Answers; Practice Test & Preparation Guide

In the Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension (VARC) section, Odd One Out questions work like a reverse parajumble. Candidates are given five sentences. Four of these sentences can be organised into a meaningful, logical paragraph, while one sentence does not fit. Candidates are asked to find this sentence out of the given sentences. CAT question paper can have one to two questions from Odd One Out in the Verbal Ability section.

Odd One Out questions in CAT exam are generally non-MCQ (TITA), there is no penalty for an incorrect response. TITA answers can significantly lift the overall CAT score, leading to a better percentile.

Since Odd One Out questions carry 3 marks per question and no negative marking (as it is usually a TITA question), even an incorrect response will not influence your final raw score. Check how raw scores convert to percentiles in CAT score vs percentile.

Candidates must practice OOO questions from past papers, and CAT mock test. Find some questions from CAT Odd One Out below:

Question 1

Estimated Difficulty Level: Easy

Question: Five jumbled-up sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5), related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd sentence and key in the number of that sentence as your answer.

1. The UK is a world leader in developing cultivated meat and the approval of a cultivated pet food is an important milestone.
2. If we’re to realise the full potential benefits of cultivated meat the government must invest in research and infrastructure.
3. The first UK applications for cultivated meat produced for humans remain under assessment with the Food Standards Agency.
4. The previous UK government had been looking at fast-tracking the approval of cultivated meat for human consumption.
5. It underscores the potential for new innovations to help reduce the negative impacts of intensive animal agriculture.

Answer Format: [ Type the number of the odd sentence ]

Question 2

Estimated Difficulty Level: Easy

Question: Five jumbled-up sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5), related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd sentence and key in the number of that sentence as your answer.

1. In English, there is no systematic rule for the naming of numbers; after ten, we have "eleven" and "twelve" and then the teens: "thirteen", "fourteen", "fifteen" and so on.
2. Even more confusingly, some English words invert the numbers they refer to: the word "fourteen" puts the four first, even though it appears last.
3. It can take children a while to learn all these words and understand that "fourteen" is different from "forty".
4. For multiples of 10, English speakers switch to a different pattern: "twenty", "thirty", "forty" and so on.
5. If you didn't know the word for "eleven", you would be unable to just guess it – you might come up with something like "one-teen".

Answer Format: [ Type the number of the odd sentence ]

Question 3

Estimated Difficulty Level: Medium

Question: Five jumbled up sentences (labelled 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5), related to a topic, are given below. Four of them can be put together to form a coherent paragraph. Identify the odd sentence and key in the number of that sentence as your answer.

1. Having an appreciation for the workings of another person’s mind is considered a prerequisite for natural language acquisition, strategic social interaction, reflexive thought, and moral judgment.
2. It is a ‘theory of mind’, though some scholars prefer to call it ‘mentalizing’ or ‘mindreading’, which is important for the development of one's cognitive abilities.
3. Though we must speculate about its evolutionary origin, we do have indications that the capacity evolved sometime in the last few million years.
4. This capacity develops from early beginnings in the first year of life to the adult’s fast and often effortless understanding of others’ thoughts, feelings, and intentions.
5. One of the most fascinating human capacities is the ability to perceive and interpret other people’s behaviour in terms of their mental states.

Answer Format: [ Type the number of the odd sentence ]

Question 4

Estimated Difficulty Level: Medium

Question: 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. One argument is that actors that do not fit within a single, well-defined category may suffer an “illegitimacy discount”.
2. Others believe that complex identities confuse audiences about an organisation’s role or purpose.
3. Some organisations have complex and multidimensional identities that span or combine categories, while other organisations possess narrow identities.
4. Identity is one of the most important features of organisations, but there exist opposing views among sociologists about how identity affects organisational performance.
5. Those who think that complex identities are beneficial point to the strategic advantages of ambiguity, and organisations’ potential to differentiate themselves from competitors.

Answer Format: [ Type the number of the odd sentence ]

Question 5

Estimated Difficulty Level: Hard

Question: Five sentences related to a topic are given below in a jumbled order. Four of them form a coherent and unified paragraph. Identify the odd sentence that does not go with the four. Key in the number of the option that you choose.

1. ‘Stat’ signalled something measurable, while ‘matic’ advertised free labour; but ‘tron’, above all, indicated control.
2. It was a totem of high modernism, the intellectual and cultural mode that decreed no process or phenomenon was too complex to be grasped, managed and optimised.
3. Like the heraldic shields of ancient knights, these morphemes were painted onto the names of scientific technologies to proclaim one’s history and achievements to friends and enemies alike.
4. The historian Robert Proctor at Stanford University calls the suffix ‘-tron’, along with ‘-matic’ and ‘-stat’, embodied symbols.
5. To gain the suffix was to acquire a proud and optimistic emblem of the electronic and atomic age.

Answer Format: [ Type the number of the odd sentence ]

A structured approach is important to master this topic as part of overall CAT preparation:

• Include OOO in Your Daily Drills: Odd One Out is an important component of the CAT syllabus for VARC. Dedicate 20 minutes daily to solving 5 to 7 VA questions under timed conditions.

• Analyse Mistakes in Mocks: When taking a full-length mocks, always review unattempted or incorrect Odd One Out questions. Check whether you fell for a keyword trap or missed a mandatory pair.

• Use Mock Scores to Know Sectional Strength: Keep track of your section percentiles. As your accuracy in non-negative TITA questions increases, your overall score stabilises.

While preparing for the exam, besides completing the CAT syllabus, candidates need a topic specific prep plan. For Odd One Out questions, candidates must not rely on gut feeling. Candidates must follow a systematic method during their daily practice:

1. Read all sentences once without judging: Read through all five sentences to understand the broad subject matter.
2. Identify the core argument in 4-5 words: Analyse what point is the author trying to prove, keep this theme central.
3. Form mandatory pairs: Group sentences that clearly link together through pronouns, connecting words (however, therefore, furthermore).
4. Read the remaining four as a single passage: Check if the four sentences you selected create a smooth, logical flow from start to finish without needing the fifth sentence.
5. Verify why the eliminated sentence fails: Before typing the response, confirm why the odd sentence was rejected (e.g., wrong tone, irrelevant detail, or broken timeline).

Check CAT prep content for all three sections:

Find some frequently asked questions related to CAT Odd One Out topic: