RAS question
A word-sorting machine rearranges words in alphabetical order, one word per step (placing the earliest alphabetical word first in each step). Input: mango apple cherry banana What is the arrangement after Step 2?
Correct answer: (D) apple banana mango cherry.
After Step 2, the arrangement is apple banana mango cherry, because apple is placed first and banana is then placed second from the remaining words.
Explanation
NCERT treats permutation as an arrangement of objects in a definite order, and its dictionary-order example uses the same idea of ordering words or letters by their sequence. Here the machine does not sort the full list in one jump; it fixes one word per step. In Step 1, apple is the earliest word alphabetically, so it moves to the first position: apple mango cherry banana. In Step 2, only the remaining words are compared: mango, cherry, and banana. Among these, banana comes earliest, so it is placed immediately after apple. The words not yet selected retain their relative positions for this step, giving apple banana mango cherry.
Why the other options are wrong
- (A) This is only the Step 1 arrangement after apple is moved first; it has not yet placed banana in the second position.
- (B) This shows a more fully alphabetised sequence, but Step 2 fixes only the first two words and leaves mango before cherry at that stage.
- (C) Cherry cannot be placed second because banana comes before cherry alphabetically among the remaining words.
Concept
This tests input-output sequencing under a fixed ordering rule, a common Reasoning & Mental Ability pattern. The recurring trap is to answer for the final sorted list instead of the specific step asked in the question.