Difficulty: Medium
Correct Answer: iv, iii, i, ii
Explanation:
Introduction / Context:
This dictionary-order question provides four related words: Accuse, Accustom, Accumulation and Accompany, labelled i to iv. You must determine the order in which these words would appear in an English dictionary and then choose the corresponding sequence of roman numerals. Because all words share the prefix 'acc', the key lies in carefully comparing letters from the fourth position onwards, which is a common test of detailed alphabetical comparison skills.
Given Data / Assumptions:
Concept / Approach:
To arrange these words, we compare them letter by letter from left to right. Because all begin with 'Acc', we first look at the fourth letter, then the fifth and so on until we find a difference. A useful preliminary step is to group words by their first four letters, which quickly reveals that one group starts with 'acco' and the others with 'accu'. Words beginning with 'acco' will appear earlier in the dictionary than words beginning with 'accu', because the letter 'o' comes alphabetically before 'u'.
Step-by-Step Solution:
Step 1: Write out the words with their early letters: Accompany (acco...), Accuse (accu...), Accustom (accu...), Accumulation (accu...).
Step 2: Compare the fourth letters. For Accompany, the fourth letter is 'o' (acco...), while for the other three words it is 'u' (accu...). Since 'o' comes before 'u' in the alphabet, Accompany must come first in dictionary order.
Step 3: Now consider the remaining three words, all of which start with 'accu': Accuse, Accustom and Accumulation.
Step 4: Look at the fifth letters: Accuse ('s'), Accustom ('s'), Accumulation ('m'). Here, 'm' comes before 's', so Accumulation (iii) comes before both Accuse and Accustom.
Step 5: We are left to order Accuse and Accustom, both starting with 'accus'. At the sixth letter, Accuse has 'e' (accuse) and Accustom has 't' (accust...). Since 'e' comes before 't', Accuse (i) precedes Accustom (ii).
Step 6: Putting it all together, the dictionary order is: Accompany (iv), Accumulation (iii), Accuse (i), Accustom (ii), which corresponds to iv, iii, i, ii.
Verification / Alternative check:
You can verify this ordering by listing each word in the provisional order and checking pairwise. Accompany must be first because 'acco' precedes 'accu'. Then among the 'accu' words, Accumulation comes before Accuse and Accustom because 'm' is alphabetically earlier than 's'. Finally, Accuse comes before Accustom because the sequence 'use' sorts earlier than 'ust'. No other ordering respects all of these letter-by-letter comparisons, so the sequence iv, iii, i, ii is uniquely correct.
Why Other Options Are Wrong:
Option iii, iv, i, ii incorrectly places Accumulation before Accompany, ignoring that words starting with 'acco' come before those starting with 'accu'. Option ii, iii, i, iv suggests that Accustom is earliest, which is inconsistent with both the 'o' vs 'u' comparison and the internal ordering among the 'accu' words. Option iv, iii, ii, i reverses the order between Accuse and Accustom, even though 'use' must come before 'ust' alphabetically. Because of these mismatches with strict letter-based comparison, these options cannot be correct.
Common Pitfalls:
A frequent error is to focus on the meanings or familiarity of the words rather than on their exact spelling. Another common pitfall is to compare only the first four letters and then guess the rest, instead of systematically examining each subsequent letter. In dictionary-order questions, always move through each word character by character until you find a difference, and base your decision strictly on that first point of divergence, regardless of word length or perceived importance.
Final Answer:
In correct dictionary order, the sequence of words is Accompany, Accumulation, Accuse and Accustom, which corresponds to the label sequence iv, iii, i, ii. Therefore iv, iii, i, ii is the correct answer.
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