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🔎 Reading · Key Ideas and Details · Lesson 6 of 6 · 5 min

Sequence: putting events and steps in order

⏱️ Texts don't always tell events in the order they happened. Sequence questions check whether you can rebuild the real timeline.

💡 Key idea

Rebuild the timeline from dates and signal words, not from the order of sentences.

🧠 The idea

SEQUENCE is the order in which events happen or steps are done. Signal words help: first, next, then, after, before, finally, meanwhile, by the time, earlier, later. Dates and times are the strongest clues. Be careful: a writer may describe events out of order, for example starting with a result and then flashing back ("Before the storm, the town had..."). The order of SENTENCES is not always the order of EVENTS. To answer, list the events the question names, find each in the text, and use dates or signal words to place them on a TIMELINE. "Before" and "after" questions often hinge on a single word, so read them twice. For process passages (how a vaccine is made, how to clean a wound), the numbered or signal-word order is the sequence.

✏️ Worked example

Passage: "The new wing opened in 2019. Planning had begun six years earlier, after a flood damaged the old lab. Construction started in 2016, once funding was approved in 2015." Question: What happened first? List events: flood, planning (2013), funding (2015), construction (2016), opening (2019). Planning began "after" the flood, so the flood is first, even though it appears in the second sentence. A reader who goes by sentence order picks the opening, which actually happened last.

📌 Takeaways

  • Sentence order is not always event order.
  • Use dates and signal words to build a timeline.
  • Read before and after questions twice.

📖 Terms in this lesson

Sequence: The order in which events or steps happen, often signaled by words such as first, next, then and finally.

✅ Check yourself

Question 1 of 3

"After drying her hands, Tara put on gloves. She had washed her hands for twenty seconds." What did Tara do first?

  1. She dried her hands.
  2. She put on gloves.
  3. She washed her hands.
  4. She checked the time.
Show the answer and rationale

Answer: C

The past perfect "had washed" places washing before drying, which came before gloving. Drying and gloving happen later, and checking the time is never mentioned.

Question 2 of 3

Which signal word shows that an event happened at the SAME time as another?

  1. Meanwhile
  2. Finally
  3. Afterward
  4. Previously
Show the answer and rationale

Answer: A

"Meanwhile" means during the same time. "Previously" points to earlier events, while "afterward" and "finally" point to later ones.

Question 3 of 3

A passage says a vaccine trial ended in 2021, results were published in 2022, and volunteers were enrolled two years before the trial ended. When were volunteers enrolled?

  1. 2023
  2. 2024
  3. 2019
  4. 2020
Show the answer and rationale

Answer: C

Two years before the 2021 end date is 2019. Counting from the 2022 publication gives 2020, and 2023 or 2024 would put enrollment after the trial ended.

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