#13 - Global, Must Be True, Purpose

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (A).

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

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

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

[spadmabandu]

Hello!

I initially chose A on this question (the correct answer), but upon reading D I started having doubts. While the passage most definitely concerns advancing a synthesis of approaches, I didn't really see an "issue" that A mentions. It doesn't really say the sociologists are in contention or there's an ongoing debate about the topic. Answer choice D states that the author's purpose was to resolve the differences between schools of thought. I felt like the author's resolution of the differences was to combine the schools of thought, and only using one is incomplete.

What is it that makes D incorrect, and is the fact that sociologists typically only apply one approach, but only the application of both approaches suffices, the "issue" mentioned in A?

Thanks!

[James Finch]

Hi Spadma,

The difference between (A) and (D) is that (A) is directly supported by the first sentence of both the first and second paragraphs. The issue being addressed is that of the "socioeconomic achievement, in the face of disadvantages due to racial discrimination, of Chinese and Japanese immigrants to the United States and their descendants," while "the synthesis of approaches" is referring to the "only an analysis of supply-side and demand-side factors together" on lines 24-25. So (A) is directly supported by what is written in the passage.

(D), on the other hand, would indicate that the author is primarily concerned with reconciling the approaches of supply-side and demand-side analysis in general, rather than in the context of Asian-American immigrants; this is nowhere in the passage. So it doesn't accurately describe what the author's purpose is in writing the passage, which is to explain the relative success of Asian-American immigrants by using a combined approach of both supply-and-demand side analysis.

Hope this clears things up!

[ser219]

Why does D indicate that the author is primarily concerned with reconciling the approaches of supply side and demand side analysis in general? I don't understand.

[James Finch]

Hi Ser,

(D) is a much more general answer, clearly referring to sociologists who are either from structural/demand-side or cultural/supply-side schools of thought, which are explicitly said by the passage to have been mutually exclusive up to this point. Without any reference to the specific topic of the passage (Chinese and Japanese immigrants' economic success), (D) would read as trying to reconcile those two schools of thought within the discipline of sociology in its entirety, a far too broad claim for the purpose of the passage. (A) on the other hand is correct because it references "an issue," which indirectly references the author's approach to reconciling the competing schools of thought for this specific topic. (D) could possibly be read this way if we assume a narrow scope, but could (and should) be read as generally as it is written.

Hope this clears things up!

[Seanjohn399]

why is b incorrect. I pick d but while reviewing the passage b was attractive for me.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi SeanJohn,

Answer choice (B) is incorrect because the purpose of the passage is not to challenge a single answer to a question, but to provide a different framework for looking at an issue. The author here is not disputing that there is some merit to both the structural and cultural approaches to the issue, but thinks that they need to be combined to get a big picture view of what was happening. For answer choice (B) to be correct, we'd need to see a passage where the author devotes significant space and effort to challenging a particular viewpoint. Our author here doesn't even state that the traditional models are wrong, so much as incomplete.

Hope that helps!
Rachael