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Covers topics across Craft and Structure.
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Question 1
Guide question C01
Transfer
A delivery planner may choose the order in which a truck visits its assigned addresses. This freedom is nevertheless ______: the truck must serve each address within its specified time window, avoid roads closed to heavy vehicles, and return to the depot before evening. The planner can devise different routes while remaining within these operational boundaries.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Why this answer
Concession and the limits of a description | Review lesson 1.3
Correct choice: circumscribed
"Nevertheless" limits the preceding freedom. Time windows, road restrictions, and a required return time set boundaries on the route, so the freedom is "circumscribed," or restricted within limits.
A: Nothing compares the planner's discretion with that of previous planners, so its novelty is unsupported.
C: The passage examines the limits quite specifically. It does not describe whether anyone previously considered this discretion.
D: The route can vary, but the three requirements explicitly structure what the planner may choose.
If you missed it: Preserve both halves of a concession: real freedom exists, and definite limits remain.
A researcher used recordings of frog calls to compare activity at two ponds. The quieter pond yielded fewer recorded calls, apparently suggesting that fewer frogs were active there. Underlined: Dense reeds around that pond, however, absorb some of the frequencies carried by the calls. End underlined. Before treating the recording totals as comparable measures of activity, the researcher plans to test how readily identical calls can be detected at each location.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?
Why this answer
Function of a qualification in scientific reasoning | Review lesson 2.7
Correct choice: It identifies a factor that could complicate the interpretation of the recorded difference.
Reed cover could reduce detectability without reducing frog activity. That possibility motivates a detection test before the researcher interprets the different recording totals as different activity levels.
A: Absorption affects the sound reaching a recorder; the text does not show that it changes whether frogs become active.
B: The test is planned, and no correction has yet been made. The sentence identifies a potential complication.
C: The sentence does not deny that the recordings contain different numbers of calls. It questions what that difference means.
If you missed it: Distinguish the observed count from the inference based on it. A competing measurement explanation need not contradict the observation.
Beetles often enter the flowers of the silver bellvine, but a visit is not by itself evidence that a beetle helps the plant reproduce. A visitor may eat pollen without transferring any to another flower. Observations of visits should therefore be supplemented by measurements of pollen transfer or seed production before the beetles' importance as pollinators is assessed.
TEXT 2
We enclosed silver bellvine flowers in sleeves that admitted windborne pollen but excluded beetles. Those flowers produced fewer seeds than flowers accessible to both wind and beetles. Although the magnitude of the beetles' contribution may vary by site, the comparison supplies evidence of a contribution that merely counting flower visits could not provide.
Based on the texts, both authors would most likely agree with which statement?
Why this answer
Agreement across different evidence | Review lesson 3.2
Correct choice: Counting beetle visits alone cannot establish the beetles' contribution to silver bellvine reproduction.
Text 1 asks for evidence beyond visits, and Text 2 explicitly distinguishes its seed-production comparison from merely counting visits. Both therefore accept the insufficiency of visit counts alone.
B: Text 2 expressly allows the contribution to vary by site; Text 1 makes no claim of uniformity.
C: Text 1 says a visitor may consume pollen without transferring it, not that consumption usually prevents a contribution. Text 2 does not classify the beetles this way.
D: Text 1 also permits measurements of pollen transfer. Neither author establishes that exclusion is the only reliable method.
If you missed it: Locate a proposition each text supports independently. A successful method in one text need not be the only method both authors would accept.
The bridge designer slightly altered the curve of a decorative railing. Reviewers accepted that the new shape was visible, but concluded that it made no Underlined: material End underlined. difference to the bridge's load capacity or the safety of its walkway. They therefore treated it as a minor revision rather than a change requiring a new structural analysis.
As used in the text, what does the word "material" most nearly mean?
Why this answer
A familiar adjective with an abstract sense | Review lesson 1.4
Correct choice: Significant
The issue is whether the visible revision changes load capacity or safety enough to matter. "Significant" fits the decision to treat it as minor. A physical difference exists, but an important structural effect does not.
A: The text acknowledges a visible physical change. Its point is that this change has no important effect on the specified functions.
B: The reviewers address the importance of the difference, not whether it could have been anticipated.
D: Nothing suggests that the railing will return to its old shape; duration is not the issue.
If you missed it: Do not let the physical subject force a physical sense of a word. Follow the decision the adjective helps explain.
Mara stopped outside the bakery, irritated that someone had painted its familiar red door blue. She remembered waiting at that door as a child, watching her father count coins for a warm loaf. Then the baker called her name from inside, using the same brisk greeting his mother had used years before. Mara stepped across the threshold. The blue seemed, suddenly, a much smaller alteration.
Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?
Why this answer
A narrative sequence and changed perception | Review lesson 2.2
Correct choice: It presents a reaction to a change, recalls an experience that helps explain the reaction, and shows the reaction being moderated by a sign of continuity.
Mara first resents the changed door. The childhood memory explains its personal importance. The familiar greeting then supplies continuity, making the alteration seem less consequential to her.
B: The text does not identify who painted the door. The baker offers a greeting, not an argument intended to persuade Mara about the paint.
C: The passage opens in the present, and Mara does not decide to restore the old color or an earlier routine.
D: Only Mara's reaction is developed. No second person argues a position, and her response changes by the end.
If you missed it: Track the effect of each stage on the same response. A memory may explain a reaction without becoming the text's endpoint.
Processing a seismic recording should not mean eliminating every trace of background noise. A faint signal from a small earthquake may occupy the same frequency range as vibration from passing traffic. Removing that noise too aggressively can erase evidence of an event. A slightly noisy recording may consequently preserve more useful information than an apparently immaculate one.
TEXT 2
We tested a noise-reduction procedure by adding known, weak seismic signals to recordings of traffic vibration. In several trials, the procedure reduced the traffic noise while preserving the added signals at the same relative amplitude. These results suggest a way to improve a recording's clarity while retaining the weak signals researchers need to detect.
How would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to the concern raised in Text 1?
Why this answer
Responding with a method that addresses a concern | Review lesson 3.5
Correct choice: By noting that some reductions of noise can preserve the weak signals whose loss Text 1 warns about
Text 1 warns about losing weak seismic signals through aggressive processing. Text 2 reports trials that reduce noise while preserving such signals. Its results address the concern by illustrating a possible method, rather than disputing the need to preserve useful information.
A: Text 2 tests whether weak signals can be preserved; it does not justify their loss by assigning them less importance.
B: The tests distinguish added seismic signals from traffic noise. Text 2 does not reinterpret the noise as evidence of an earthquake.
C: Successful results in several trials support a possible approach, not a guarantee that the procedure can never remove a useful signal.
If you missed it: Two texts can agree about a risk while one supplies a possible way to manage it. Do not force a disagreement or turn trial results into a universal guarantee.
The tea buyer was ______, detecting distinctions that other tasters repeatedly overlooked. She could identify a faint grassy note in one batch and a slightly sharper finish in another, then explain which difference mattered for a particular blend. Her judgments were based on these small contrasts rather than on a rule that one region's tea was always superior.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
The buyer makes fine, relevant distinctions and explains them. "Discriminating" describes this perceptive selectivity. The final sentence also excludes broad judgments made by region alone.
B: "Prescriptive" emphasizes laying down rules about what others should do; the passage emphasizes sensitivity to differences rather than rule-setting.
C: The buyer supports her judgments with specific contrasts, not an unconsidered impulse.
D: "Categorical" would describe an unqualified or absolute judgment. Her evaluations depend on particular features and a blend's needs.
If you missed it: When several words could describe a person's judgment, identify the particular ability illustrated by the examples, not just the fact that judgments are made.
A transit map can show the same sequence of stations served by two lines without representing the exact distances between them. Designers may spread apart crowded labels and compress long stretches with few stops. This does not make the map defective. It shows that the diagram can help riders identify connections and station order without reproducing every spatial feature of the railway.
Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?
Why this answer
Purpose and the scope of a representation | Review lesson 2.1
Correct choice: To clarify what a transit map can accomplish despite leaving some spatial features unrepresented
The passage acknowledges distorted spacing, then explains that the map can successfully represent connections and station order without reproducing every spatial feature. It clarifies the scope of the map's function.
A: The author explicitly rejects the inference that the described distortions make the map defective; no added measurements are recommended.
B: The map can help riders identify connections and station order. The text does not say that altered spacing prevents route comparisons.
D: The passage explains the information the map conveys; it does not rank appearance above connections.
If you missed it: Purpose answers should reflect the author's conclusion about a limitation, not assume that every limitation is a problem to repair.
A town that calls its annual bread an inherited tradition should retain the recipe that gives the custom its identity. Changing the grain or the fermentation process may yield excellent bread, but the result is a new product bearing an old name. Preserving a tradition requires more than preserving the occasion on which something is served.
TEXT 2
The annual bread remains a living tradition because successive bakers adapt it to the grain available and the tastes of the people who gather to share it. Its identity rests partly in this recurring act of communal preparation. Insisting on a single fixed recipe can overlook the practice through which the community has kept the tradition alive.
Which choice identifies the most precise point of disagreement between the authors?
Why this answer
Disagreement about cultural continuity | Review lesson 3.3
Correct choice: Whether retaining a fixed recipe is necessary for the custom to preserve its identity
Text 1 treats retaining the recipe as necessary to preserving this tradition's identity. Text 2 argues that communal preparation and adaptation can sustain its identity despite recipe changes.
A: Text 1 explicitly allows changed recipes to produce excellent bread. Text 2 does not deny that they can.
C: Text 1 says preserving the occasion is not sufficient; it does not deny that communal gatherings can contribute. Text 2 gives them a substantial role.
D: Neither text argues against the need for historical continuity. Their disagreement concerns what carries that continuity.
If you missed it: Distinguish necessary from contributing and sufficient. Rejecting the adequacy of one feature does not deny that it plays any role.
No visitor seemed surprised by the subject of Imani's photograph: the same hillside appeared on half the postcards in the village shop. Nor did the image introduce a new photographic technique. Yet the single white fence cutting across the dark slope made the familiar scene Underlined: arresting End underlined.; people who had intended to glance at it found themselves standing still to look.
As used in the text, what does the word "arresting" most nearly mean?
Why this answer
Figurative language constrained by description | Review lesson 1.7
Correct choice: Striking
The image holds attention so strongly that people pause to examine it. "Striking" captures that visual impact. The opening sentences explicitly distinguish this effect from surprise about the subject or technical novelty.
A: Viewers stop because the image attracts attention, not because it restricts their actions.
B: The subject is familiar and unsurprising. Although a striking image can sometimes be unexpected, unexpectedness is not the effect established here.
C: The passage explicitly rules out a new technique and does not connect the image's appeal to innovation.
If you missed it: Use nearby exclusions as constraints. The correct sense must explain attention without importing the novelty or surprise the text sets aside.
A market manager defended the relocation of food stalls to the edge of town by arguing that shoppers could simply visit a different stall if the journey became inconvenient. Underlined: In this view, the availability of alternatives is enough to establish that shoppers retain meaningful choice. End underlined. But an alternative requiring two bus transfers may be of little practical use to someone who previously shopped during a short lunch break. Counting options does not establish that those options are accessible.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?
Why this answer
Separating a reported claim from the author's position | Review lesson 2.6
Correct choice: It makes explicit an assumption in the manager's argument that the text subsequently questions.
"In this view" attributes the sentence to the manager's reasoning. The following example challenges its assumption that an available alternative is necessarily a meaningful, accessible option.
A: The author questions the reported view in the next sentence rather than adopting it as a conclusion.
C: The sentence restates an assumption; it proposes no relocation plan or other compromise.
D: Neither "most shoppers" nor successful satisfaction of their needs is established. The author supplies a case where the assumption fails.
If you missed it: Attach an owner to every claim before labeling its function. Attribution phrases can separate a view being analyzed from a view being endorsed.
We offered shoppers identical bags of apples at an identical final price. One randomly assigned group saw the price alone; another saw the same price beside a higher, crossed-out price labeled as the former price. More shoppers in the second group selected a bag. Because the actual price was held constant, the difference supports an effect of the price presentation.
TEXT 2
Reports that shoppers buy more items marked as discounted should be interpreted carefully. Discounted items often cost less than the alternatives, so observed purchases may reflect lower prices rather than an effect of the discount label. Comparing purchases without separating these factors cannot establish which factor mattered.
How would the author of Text 1 most likely respond to Text 2?
Why this answer
Text 1 responds by distinguishing its design | Review lesson 3.4
Correct choice: By explaining that the comparison held the final price constant while varying its presentation
Text 2 identifies a confounding difference in actual prices. Text 1 explicitly removes that difference: the bags and final prices are identical while presentation changes. This feature addresses the particular warning.
A: The study isolates presentation; it does not establish that price itself generally matters little.
B: Text 1 expressly states that the final prices were identical. The crossed-out figure did not change the amount paid.
D: The argument depends on actually holding price constant, not on treating random assignment as a reason to ignore a systematic price difference.
If you missed it: Match a criticism to the variable it concerns, then check the other text's actual controls. Do not substitute a general methodological slogan.
A geologist proposed that two pieces of dark stone came from the same quarry. Both contain flecks of mica, but such flecks are common in rocks from many quarries in the region, and the samples otherwise differ in their mineral composition. On the evidence presented, the proposed connection remains ______: the shared feature provides only weak support for the specific common origin the geologist suggests.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Why this answer
Degree of support for a proposed relationship | Review lesson 1.5
Correct choice: tenuous
The conclusion concerns the strength of support for a common origin. A widespread feature has little power to identify one particular quarry, and the remaining composition differs. "Tenuous" means weak or insufficiently substantial.
A: "Indirect" describes a relationship or route that is not immediate. The issue here is the weakness of the evidence for the proposed origin, not an intermediate step connecting the samples.
B: "Derivative" would describe something developed from another source or based on imitation. The sentence evaluates evidential strength, not a process by which one sample developed from the other.
D: "Incidental" would make the connection secondary or accompanying something else. The text is assessing how well the connection itself is supported.
If you missed it: Ask what dimension the blank evaluates: strength, route, originality, or importance. Shared dictionary associations do not make these dimensions interchangeable.
For months, Lena had called Mr. Vale unfriendly because he seldom joined the conversations in their building's courtyard. Then the water pipe burst. Before anyone had agreed on what to do, he had carried the downstairs tenant's boxes to safety, found a shutoff valve, and brought towels from his apartment. He spoke no more than usual. Lena, watching him hand a dry blanket to her neighbor, began to suspect that she had mistaken one kind of silence for another.
Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?
Why this answer
Main purpose of a literary passage | Review lesson 2.1
Correct choice: To depict a character revising a judgment about another person in light of that person's actions
Lena initially interprets silence as unfriendliness. Mr. Vale remains quiet while helping people, prompting her to question that interpretation. The change developed by the passage is in Lena's judgment.
B: Mr. Vale speaks no more than usual. The text reveals his helpfulness rather than showing him become more openly sociable.
C: The passage does not establish earlier inconsiderate conduct. It shows that Lena may have misjudged quiet behavior.
D: Bringing a blanket can be attentive to another person's needs; the text does not establish an inability to understand feelings.
If you missed it: Identify who changes. A passage can reveal a stable character differently by changing an observer's interpretation.
At the end of the novel The Last Ferry, the narrator watches a boat approach but never learns whether her brother is aboard. The withheld answer preserves the uncertainty that has shaped her entire day. Treating the ending as a puzzle to be solved would replace that sustained uncertainty with a kind of resolution the novel deliberately declines to supply.
TEXT 2
The unanswered question at the end of The Last Ferry gives readers an active role. Readers can use the brother's earlier decisions to imagine whether he boards the boat and then construct the reunion, or its absence, beyond the final page. The ending invites them to complete a story that the narrator cannot yet finish.
How would the author of Text 1 most likely respond to the interpretation in Text 2?
Why this answer
A literary disagreement about the reader's task | Review lesson 3.9
Correct choice: By questioning whether completing the story would preserve the uncertainty that gives the ending its effect
Text 1 treats sustained uncertainty as the ending's effect and warns against replacing it with resolution. Text 2 treats imagined completion as the reader's task. Text 1 would therefore question whether that task preserves the intended effect.
A: Neither text says the earlier decisions conclusively settle the answer. Text 1 specifically resists turning the ending into a solved puzzle.
B: Text 1 questions the use of details to settle the ending, not every interpretive use of the brother's earlier decisions.
C: Text 1 explicitly says that the narrator never learns whether her brother is aboard; it does not describe deliberate concealment.
If you missed it: Keep three roles separate: what the narrator knows, what readers can imagine, and what the critic argues the ending accomplishes.
With the festival opening in an hour, the organizers covered the unfinished sign with a plainly printed sheet. The solution was ______ rather than elegant: it could be prepared immediately, conveyed the essential directions, and required materials already on hand. They intended to commission a permanent sign after the festival.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Why this answer
A practical choice and its rationale | Review lesson 1.5
Correct choice: expedient
The organizers choose a quickly available solution that works under immediate constraints. "Expedient" identifies that practical convenience; the passage contrasts it with elegance and describes a later permanent replacement.
A: "Prescient" means showing knowledge of what will happen. The organizers respond to an existing time constraint rather than anticipating a future event.
C: "Scrupulous" emphasizes exceptional care or exactness. The reasons supplied concern speed, adequacy, and available materials.
D: "Definitive" would suggest a final or authoritative solution, inconsistent with the planned permanent replacement.
If you missed it: Find the stated basis for the choice. A temporary measure can be useful because it is practical, without being especially meticulous or final.
Engineers initially disagreed about why a light sensor became unreliable in a greenhouse. One group blamed heat; another blamed moisture. Controlled tests showed that high heat alone and high moisture alone caused little disruption, whereas their combination caused substantial disruption. The results suggest that the original explanations each identified a relevant condition but treated it too independently. The next design will therefore be tested under combinations of temperature and humidity rather than under each variable separately.
Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?
Why this answer
A multi-part scientific argument | Review lesson 2.10
Correct choice: It introduces rival explanations, reports evidence of an interaction, and draws a consequence for future testing.
The text moves from heat versus moisture, to evidence that their combination matters, to a plan that tests combinations. Both conditions remain relevant; the change is from independent explanations to an interaction.
A: The results do not select one condition and discard the other. Their combination produces the substantial disruption.
B: No repaired sensor or successful new design is reported. The final sentence describes future testing.
C: The rival explanations precede the controlled results. Those results already supply the evidence that motivates the revised testing approach.
If you missed it: Track both sequence and logical relation. A combined explanation differs from choosing one rival or rejecting both conditions as irrelevant.
Workers in our survey valued flexible scheduling: they could choose when to begin their workday, provided they completed an agreed number of hours. Many reported that this control helped them coordinate work with family responsibilities. The findings suggest that giving workers discretion over start times can have benefits even when total working hours remain unchanged.
TEXT 2
Flexible scheduling can be difficult for workers when it means that employers change shifts on short notice. The weekly number of hours may remain unchanged, but uncertain start times make it harder to arrange transportation or care for family members. Evaluating schedule flexibility requires asking who controls the changes, not merely whether working times can vary.
Which choice best describes the relationship between the texts?
Why this answer
Related terms with different definitions | Review lesson 3.7
Correct choice: Text 2 distinguishes a form of flexibility from the worker-controlled flexibility whose benefits Text 1 discusses.
Text 1 concerns employees' discretion; Text 2 concerns employers' short-notice changes and explicitly asks who controls them. Different control arrangements explain why the evaluations need not conflict.
B: Both texts state that total hours can remain unchanged, so reduced hours do not explain the contrast.
C: Text 1 explicitly describes workers choosing start times. It makes the opposite of the assumption attributed to it here.
D: Difficulties with employer-controlled changes do not refute benefits from employee-controlled changes. The choice collapses the distinction Text 2 makes.
If you missed it: Before labeling two evaluations contradictory, check whether the shared term refers to the same arrangement in both texts.
The stage was furnished with ordinary objects: a table, two chairs, and a tall lamp. Their Underlined: disposition End underlined., however, made the room unsettling. One chair faced the wall, the other stood far from the table, and the lamp illuminated an empty corner. Nothing was damaged or unfamiliar; the unease arose from where the familiar things had been placed.
As used in the text, what does the word "disposition" most nearly mean?
Why this answer
Meaning determined by the object of description | Review lesson 1.4
Correct choice: Arrangement
The next sentences specify the objects' positions and orientations, and the final sentence explicitly identifies placement as the source of unease. "Disposition" therefore means their arrangement.
B: Preparation would concern making the objects ready for use, whereas the text focuses on their spatial relationship.
C: Objects are not assigned an intention here; the passage describes where they stand, not a plan they possess.
D: A person's disposition can mean temperament or character, but the relevant feature of these objects is their placement rather than an inherent quality.
If you missed it: Use the grammatical referent and the following particulars together. A common sense associated with people may not fit a group of objects.
Written instructions for a dance specify a sequence of steps, but they rarely fix every detail of timing, weight, and emphasis. Underlined: A recipe can tell two cooks to fold the same ingredients together without making their movements identical. End underlined. Similarly, performers following the same dance instructions may produce recognizably related yet distinct realizations. Reconstructing a dance from instructions therefore involves choices rather than the automatic recovery of one uniquely determined performance.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?
Correct choice: It uses a familiar activity to clarify why shared instructions need not determine identical execution.
The two cooks provide an accessible parallel: identical directions do not determine every movement. The next sentence transfers that relationship to performers, supporting the conclusion about reconstructive choices.
A: The recipe is an analogy, not a historical source offered to fill gaps in dance records.
B: The comparison emphasizes a shared feature, not a greater amount of judgment in cooking.
D: No account of the origins of recipes or dance notation appears. Similar function is not evidence of shared historical development.
If you missed it: For an analogy, state the relationship carried across the two cases. Do not convert the comparison into historical evidence or an unsupported ranking.
A printed fabric design and a woven rug share an unusual sequence of interlocking birds. Since the print was the first version documented in the records then available, a catalog attributed the rug's design to imitation of the print. The close visual match was taken as evidence that the weaver had borrowed the printed composition.
TEXT 2
A newly examined household inventory describes the rug's distinctive bird sequence in a dated entry made before the print was produced. The similarity remains striking, but the print cannot have served as the source for a rug already in existence. The print may instead have borrowed from the rug, or both may reflect an earlier design.
Which claim from Text 1 is most directly challenged by the information in Text 2?
Why this answer
New evidence and the direction of influence | Review lesson 3.6
Correct choice: The weaver created the rug's composition by imitating the printed design.
The dated description places the rug before production of the print. That chronology directly challenges the proposed print-to-rug borrowing, while leaving their resemblance intact.
A: Text 2 explicitly preserves the similarity and identifies the same distinctive bird sequence.
C: Text 2 adds newly examined evidence; it does not contradict what records were available when the catalog was written.
D: Both texts concern a printed fabric and a woven rug with a shared design, so the new evidence does not challenge this broad possibility.
If you missed it: New evidence can overturn an inference without overturning either an observation or a statement about what was previously documented.
The editor's anthology places a spare domestic poem beside an exuberant travel narrative and a densely argued philosophical fragment. These choices are not arbitrary: each work experiments with the experience of waiting. The anthology is therefore ______ in its selection of forms and styles while remaining consistent in its organizing concern.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word?
Why this answer
Reconciling variety with a consistent criterion | Review lesson 1.9
Correct choice: eclectic
The collection draws from varied forms and styles but applies a coherent thematic criterion. "Eclectic" captures that variety without implying random selection, complete coverage, or contradiction.
A: "Indiscriminate" suggests a lack of meaningful selection criteria, contradicted by the shared concern with waiting.
B: Three different kinds of work demonstrate range, not complete coverage of all relevant forms or styles.
C: Differences among selected works do not make the selection inconsistent when the editor uses an explicit common criterion.
If you missed it: Preserve two dimensions at once: diversity in what is chosen and consistency in why it is chosen.
A software designer's tutorial videos attracted a large audience, whereas her technical paper initially had few readers. A profile therefore described the videos as her principal contribution. Later developers, however, repeatedly adopted a method introduced in the paper, including developers who never mentioned the videos. Immediate audience size and influence on subsequent software design can thus produce quite different accounts of a designer's importance.
Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?
Why this answer
Purpose of contrasting measures of influence | Review lesson 2.1
Correct choice: To show how measuring immediate popularity alone can misrepresent a designer's technical influence
The profile uses immediate audience size to rank the contributions. Later adoption of the paper's method reveals a different dimension of importance, showing the limits of that measure.
A: The small initial readership is stated, but no deliberate effort to restrict it or motive for doing so is supplied.
C: The example establishes a possible divergence between popularity and influence, not a general superiority of technical papers.
D: The text does not show that the later developers used the videos or owed them acknowledgment. Its concern is how importance is assessed.
If you missed it: Let the example support the general distinction the author actually draws. Do not enlarge one case into a universal ranking or invent an intention.
In the satire The Perfect Queue, officials create an increasingly elaborate set of rules for standing in line, until waiting itself becomes the service being offered. The target is an administration that confuses the smooth operation of procedures with the achievement of their original purpose. Each new rule makes the system more orderly and less useful.
TEXT 2
The officials in The Perfect Queue are absurd, but the people waiting also compete to obey the most complicated rules and criticize anyone who questions them. This behavior helps sustain the pointless system. Reading the satire only as an attack on administrators misses its attention to the ordinary people who turn compliance into a source of prestige.
How would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to the interpretation in Text 1?
Why this answer
One interpretation extending another | Review lesson 3.9
Correct choice: By accepting its account of the officials while adding that the satire also criticizes the conduct of the people waiting
Text 2 accepts that the officials are absurd but identifies another target: the participants who sustain the system by treating compliance as prestigious. It extends the first interpretation instead of rejecting its account of the officials.
A: Text 2 calls the officials absurd and the system pointless; it does not dispute the administrative failure Text 1 identifies.
B: The people value compliance, but Text 2 treats that valuation as part of the satire's criticism, not evidence that the procedures fulfill their original purpose.
D: Text 2 describes competition to comply and criticism of questioners, not a knowing protest through exaggerated obedience.
If you missed it: Distinguish an expanded interpretation from a contradiction. Also separate what fictional characters value from what the critic endorses.