#4 - The United States government generally tries to protect

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below! Thanks!

[na02]

I had C and D as contenders and chose D because I didn't think "does not place a high value" is a valid assumption I could say the stimulus implies. But as for E, I had crossed it out because the last sentence says "some individual states" and thought "state expenditures" are too much of a generalization.
What exactly would be "slanted language" in the testmakers' eyes? I only chose that answer because I couldn't make sense of it.

Many thanks!

[Robert Carroll]

na,

Answer choice (C) is wrong as it contradicts the first sentence.

Answer choice (D) is wrong because the stimulus uses the word "ridiculously".

As for answer choice (E), consider what the stimulus said about federal expenditures. If the total from the feds is less than some states, then you already know that total state expenditures will exceed total federal expenditures. Take those states that are spending more than the feds. Put them all together, along with every other state. You can't get lower by adding more to the expenditure, so the state expenditure will still be larger than total federal expenditure. If that's true, then you can in fact infer a comparison between total federal and total state expenditure - the former must be less than the latter. Even if that weren't true, the fact that the author is comparing the feds to some states involves a comparison of federal and state expenditure - validating answer choice (E).

Robert Carroll

[andriana.caban]

What is question choice (D) saying? What does "slanted language" mean?

Thanks!

[KelseyWoods]

Hi Andriana!

"Slanted language" basically means the same thing as "biased language." So answer choice (D) is saying that the author does not use biased language. However, as Robert pointed out, the author uses the term "ridiculously low" to describe federal expenditures for nationwide soil conservation programs. Thus, the author is asserting their bias by indicating that they think the expenditures are low, rather than just presenting the facts in a completely unbiased way.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey