#15 - Global Reference, Main Point

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (C).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[sltu22]

I picked answer choice (B), which was wrong, and I'm a bit confused as to the correct approach for these problems.

In general, when it comes to "main point" problems, I feel like there are two approaches. I could pick the answer that captures every important issue in the passage, or I could pick the answer that expands on the main focus (what the bulk of the passage discusses). In the past, I've chosen the answer that captures every issue mentioned in the passage, but those have been incorrect because it was too vague about the core details. Here, I chose the answer that emphasized the bulk of the passage's discussion, which was on the debate between splitters and lumpers and the general consensus that species classification is arbitrary.

I was wavering between (B) and (C) because (C) also mentions the political/practical implications of species classification, which was briefly mentioned at the beginning and end of the passage, but I felt that the "practical implications" were too peripheral to base an answer off of. Instead, I picked (B) because it mentioned the arbitrariness discussed in the entire 3rd paragraph.

Could someone help shed light on how to approach "main point" problems? These are the questions I most frequently get wrong even though they are supposed to be the easiest. I feel like I understand all the passages very well, I just don't get why sometimes they want us to choose the answer that discusses everything in the passage, and other times they want us to ignore peripheral points and choose answers that expand on the bulk of the passage.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi sltu,

I can't really give feedback on any other specific questions because they aren't in front of me, but if I had to guess, you may be picking attractively worded inaccurate answer choices. That is, they might very well state something VERY close to the passage, but not actually describe the main point of the passage. When you think about main point questions, are you prephrasing prior to looking at the answer choices? It's a fairly important step in your process. If you don't know what your answer choice should look like, it's not surprising that you are struggling to find the right answer choice.

I'll lead you through my process a bit on this one. When I finished the passage, I noted that the passage is focused on how we classify bird populations into different species and that every method described in the passage involved some amount of inexactness either lumping or splitting. I then thought about the author's purpose here, and was drawn to the end of the passage---the author notes that these distinctions have economic and political importance which echoed the framing at the start of the passage. So I knew that I was looking for something that combined those ideas to get the overall main point.

In this case, the political/economic piece is critical to the overall main point. It explains the WHY of the passage. Why is the author writing this passage? Why should anyone care? The main point of a passage has to be what the author's point is while considering the author's purpose. While the economic and political implications weren't discussed throughout the passage, they were an important framing of the problem and were a critical aspect of the passage.

Hope that helps!