Numerical answer
Five sentences related to a common theme are given below, labelled 1 to 5. Four of them, when arranged in a specific order, form a coherent paragraph. Identify the sentence that does not fit and key in its number.
1. Double-entry bookkeeping, developed by Italian merchants in the late medieval period, records every transaction as both a debit and a credit.
2. This dual recording provides a built-in check: if the two sides of the ledger fail to balance, an error has occurred somewhere in the accounts.
3. Venetian trading houses were among the earliest and most prolific users of the method, applying it to track complex, long-distance ventures.
4. Renaissance painters frequently relied on wealthy merchant patrons whose fortunes had been built through exactly these expanding trade networks.
5. Historians credit the system with enabling more reliable long-term partnerships, since investors could audit a firm's accounts with far greater confidence.
1. Double-entry bookkeeping, developed by Italian merchants in the late medieval period, records every transaction as both a debit and a credit.
2. This dual recording provides a built-in check: if the two sides of the ledger fail to balance, an error has occurred somewhere in the accounts.
3. Venetian trading houses were among the earliest and most prolific users of the method, applying it to track complex, long-distance ventures.
4. Renaissance painters frequently relied on wealthy merchant patrons whose fortunes had been built through exactly these expanding trade networks.
5. Historians credit the system with enabling more reliable long-term partnerships, since investors could audit a firm's accounts with far greater confidence.
Show answer and solution
Answer: 4
Sentences 1, 2, 3 and 5 form a coherent account of double-entry bookkeeping: its mechanism (1, 2), an early adopter (3), and its historical significance (5). Sentence 4, about Renaissance painters and their patrons, shifts to an unrelated topic (art patronage) rather than continuing the discussion of bookkeeping itself, making it the odd one out.
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