#1 - It is probably within the reach of human technology to

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Main Point. The correct answer choice is (D).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

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

Answer choice (E):

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

[chian9010]

I chose A instead D...and I don't know why D is correct
Can anyone help me?


Thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

Happy to help, chian9010! In LR, the Main Point is always the claim that gets all the support and gives none, so you want to be sure to find the claim within the stimulus that received support from other claims but didn't give any support to anything else. When in doubt about which answer is the main point, try pulling those claims out of the argument and asking yourself which one supports the other. Does answer A, in this case, support answer D, or is it the other way around?

The first sentence does get some support from the second sentence, so it is a conclusion, but you can't stop there because some arguments have multiple conclusions in them and we only want the main one. That first sentence, coupled with the "if there is even a chance" language and the last sentence about the benefits of doing the research, supports the contention that research now is justified. That means the first sentence is both a conclusion and a premise, something we call an "intermediate conclusion" or "subsidiary conclusion".

Look at the argument this way, rearranged a bit and paraphrased slightly (okay, more than slightly):

1. It could take a while and a lot of effort to make Mars inhabitable, but we have done other great things that took time and effort
2. Therefore, we could do it
3. Research now would give us a lot of good, useful information
4. If there is a chance that it could work (which we have established there is), research now would be justified
5. Therefore, research now is justified

It all builds to justifying the research, and the claim that we could succeed is just a step along the way to getting there. That's why D is the best answer here.

Use that process of comparing the claims to each other to figure out how they relate to each other - supporter or supported - to help determine whether a claim is a premise, a conclusion, or both. Keep at it!

[Rosepose24]

I got the right answer and used the contextual clues that "inhabitable" in this case= is fit to live in. But I always thought inhabitable meant -not fit to live in, since habitable means fit to live in. English is my first language and this still came as news to me.

From reading online I've come to learn:

inhabitable = fit to live in.
habitable = fit to live in.
uninhabitable ... unfit to live in.

Hope this helps anyone else who was tripped up. lol

[Robert Carroll]

Rose,

It happens! "Inflammable" and "flammable" are similar (and probably more dangerous in real circumstances).

I think one way to think through the similarity in meaning is to consider the sentence "Beth is an inhabitant of Chicago." That means that Beth IS in Chicago, so we can infer that "inhabitant" is "one who inhabits", so "inhabitable" means "capable of being lived in"

The "in-" prefix here is not a negative, like it is in some other cases, but, I think, means something like "in" the preposition.

Regardless, now that you're aware of the dictionary definition, you'll be on guard in the future!

Robert Carroll

[josh1ua]

Why is E not the correct answer?

[Beatrice Brown]

Hi Joshua! Happy to explain why E is not the correct answer

On Main Point questions, we want to find the answer choice that accurately summarizes the conclusion of the argument/what the author's point of view is. Any answer choice that restates a premise or an intermediate/subsidiary conclusion, for example, is wrong.

In this argument, the conclusion is that research efforts to make Mars's climate inhabitable are justified. The author gives several premises to support this conclusion, and Adam's post earlier in this thread does a great job describing how the argument proceeds.

Answer choice (D) is a restatement of the main conclusion of the stimulus, making it the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (E), however, restates the last sentence of the stimulus, which is a premise offered to support the main conclusion. Notice that the stimulus does not offer any evidence to support the claim that understanding how to change Mars's atmosphere may help us understand Earth's atmospheric changes. Instead, this sentence gives an additional reason (beyond the fact that we can probably make the climate of Mars inhabitable) for why research efforts are justifiable. The word "Besides" in this sentence also gives us a hint that this sentence is likely a premise.

In general, when approaching Main Point questions, be sure to mentally re-order the sentences in the stimulus such that the order reflects how the premises lead to the conclusion.

I hope this helps!