#26 - Must Be True, Purpose

[reop6780]

The correct answer is A while I chose E.

They were both appealing answers.

I went back to the passage shortly, from line 5 the passage literally discussed ways to overcome the fear (debilitating effects of low cohesion).

What makes answer A better answer and answer E incorrect?

[Adam Tyson]

I see what you like about E - I think it is a very attractive answer. My analysis when I have two contenders like this is not to ask why one answer is wrong - after all, the instructions don't tell us to pick the "right" answer, but rather the "best" answer - but to ask why one answer is better than the other. So, why is answer A better here?

Answer A describes the compare/contrast nature of that portion of the passage. The first paragraph is about the positive value of cohesiveness, and only incidentally about low cohesiveness. Low cohesiveness is discussed primarily as a way to point out the advantages of cohesiveness, which is the real purpose of that paragraph. A describes the role that the discussion of low cohesiveness plays in that paragraph quite nicely.

E talks about a "proposal" for overcoming low cohesiveness. Did we really get a proposal? I would argue that we got a description of what needs to be accomplished without any proposal for how to accomplish it. I would also say that the purpose of that first paragraph wasn't to talk about fixing low cohesiveness but to talk about the value of cohesiveness, so answer E isn't as closely tied to the purpose of the paragraph as answer A is. Is E bad? Not really, but A is better, and so according to our instructions that's the one you have to pick.

As always, I hope that helped!

[reop6780]

Thank you, Adam!

I separated the first paragraph and attempted to think what it was trying to deliver as whole paragraph.

I guess I looked at individual trees not forest.

your kind explanation helped me a lot.