#8 - Main Point

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation
(See the complete passage discussion here: lsat/viewtopic.php?t=14208)

The correct answer choice is (A)

The author’s main point, as discussed above, is to present the challenges of increasing information
production in the face of decreasing durability that characterizes modern storage methods.

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice, as it restates the prephrase presented above
and in the passage’s VIEWSTAMP analysis.

Answer choice (B): The passage does not state that such distinctions are being made with greater
efficiency than ever before, so this choice fails the Fact Test and cannot be the right answer to this
Main Point question.

Answer choice (C): The passage does not support this assertion regarding electronic versus
conventional storage, so this choice can be confidently ruled out of contention.

Answer choice (D): Making such distinctions is becoming increasingly important, but this is not the
main point of the passage, as discussed above, so this cannot be the right answer to this Main Point
question.

Answer choice (E): The author’s main point is not that modern storage allows us to keep even
unimportant information; it is that storage will continue to be an issue as information is produced
faster than it can be stored.

[Catallus]

I was surprised to miss this question—I had picked (D) over (A). I eliminated (A) because I did not think the passage supported the idea that there is a trend of "decreasing durability of modern storage media." In fact, I thought this was contradicted. Yes, we are told that some modern storage media (e.g., digital storage tape) is not very durable, only lasting ten years. However, low durability ≠ decreasing durability. And the author explicitly notes that "new computer technologies are emerging that may soon provide archivists with the information storage durability they require." So, the durability of modern storage media, although it's a bit pathetic right now, doesn't seem to be decreasing; rather, it's poised to increase to an unprecedented level.

Now, on review, I realized that (D) incorrectly mentions "limitations on the capacity of modern storage media." In reality, the overriding problem the author identifies is the tension between a huge volume of information to handle and limited time to handle/store/sort that information. It's not, in short, a problem of capacity; modern media can store all sorts of information while "occupying very little space." The second part of (D) may be questionable, too—only documents with genuine value? Making a value-informed assessment, which the author endorses, is perhaps not quite the same as trashing everything not deemed to be genuinely valuable.

So I can toss out (D), but I'm still not pleased with (A). Where does the "decreasing" part of (A) come from textually?

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Catallus,

The first point to make is that, in the context of the passage, the word "modern" means "relating to the present or recent times as opposed to the remote past." In other words, it's not just referring to the present computer technology.

The main discussion of the decreasing durability of modern storage media appears in the first paragraph. A key line is when one archivist notes that "the durability of recording media has decreased almost as rapidly" (my emphasis)(lines 7-8). The paragraph then gives several examples of ancient and medieval documents that have survived to the present and contrasted them with more recent/modern examples of books and photos that have not lasted nearly as long. Even within the modern examples, the trend shows durability decreasing. Black and white photos (which predate color photos) last longer than color photos, and color photos (which predate video tapes) last longer than video tapes.

The trend continues when we get to even more recent media, "recent generations of digital storage tape are considered safe from deterioration for only ten years " (lines 31-33). Ten years is even less than video tapes lasted, which was 20 years, so it's not just that modern storage media is "a bit pathetic right now" as you put it, it's that the durability has decreased over the course of history from thousands of years, to hundreds of years, to decades, to 10 years.

It is true that the author mentions that "new computer technologies are emerging that may soon provide archivists with the information storage durability they require" (lines 38-40), the key word here is "may." This is by no means certain. Even if the new technologies do solve the durability problem going forward, that still doesn't entirely fix the problem that was originally created, because the archivists still have to transfer all the important records to the newer more durable media before the old records deteriorate. This why they are "quickly running out of time" (line 36 ).