#3 - The United States government generally tries to protect

[kappe]

Questuon 51 Main Pioint. I chose answer choice D Because D in what I coukd see was a rephrasing of what was in the stimulus.However, I truly thought the the answer would be E. I did not pick E because I thought the answer to Main Point had to come right out of the stimulus, and the stimulus says nothing about what the federal government should spend money on . So , in MP qeustion is the correct answer a general idea that could be stated or may not stated ?

[Lucas Moreau]

Hello, kappe,

I can see how this one is tricky, for Main Point. Usually Main Point questions are more straightforward than this one.

Here, the key sentence is "But one resource has been ignored for too long." This states the opinion of the speaker about the federal government's low expenditures on soil conservation programs - briefly, it isn't enough. Talking about how topsoil has been eroding is further evidence that this is a problem that is not being sufficiently addressed.

In Main Point, the answer will always be stated, but not always explicitly word for word. The answer's always there, though!

Hope that helps,
Lucas Moreau

[victorias]

I was confused between choices D and E

- I didn't know the meaning of "inequitable" so wasn't able to eliminate choice D based on that

But for Choice E, it seems to go a step further than the author in stating that more should be done. The author is making the argument that not enough is being done but he is not giving a solution to the problem of low funding. Choice E seems like a statement that the author would agree with based on the information in the passage.

How do we justify the "more should be done" part for a main point question?

[Laura Carrier]

Hi Victoria,

This is a relatively unusual main point question, since the correct answer is, as you noted, a conclusion that we could expect the stimulus author to agree with rather than something the stimulus has explicitly concluded. Thus, when you are asked to identify the main point, you can’t use the ordinary approach of analyzing the stimulus to identify the author’s main conclusion and looking for the answer choice that most closely resembles it, making this a more challenging question. In such a case, it may be helpful to think of the question type as a bit of a hybrid between Main Point and Must Be True.

If you analyze each sentence of the stimulus, you will find that every statement is a premise (or perhaps a counterpremise), and that there is really no explicit conclusion—although you know enough about what the author thinks to guess what the conclusion should be. Thus, when you are asked to choose the answer choice that “best expresses” the author’s main point, you need to make an assessment similar to what would be required by a Must Be True question and determine what the author was attempting to prove, then choose the answer choice that comes closest.

You are quite right in your discussion of answer choice (E) that the author argues that the federal government is not doing enough but doesn’t specify a solution to the problem of ridiculously low expenditures. As a result, (E) does say something that the stimulus author doesn’t state explicitly. But although the stimulus has not directly stated that the federal government should spend more on soil conservation, the author has included some value judgments among the premises that provide far stronger clues than the more objective statements of fact as to what the author wants to convince us of. We are told, for instance, that the resource of topsoil “has been ignored for too long” by the federal government, and that federal expenditures on nationwide soil conservation are “ridiculously low.” These normative statements can help us to infer what the author wants us to believe should be done—i.e., stop ignoring the topsoil and correct the ridiculously low level of expenditures. And (E) comes pretty close to that unspoken conclusion.

With respect to eliminating answer choice (D), when you encounter a word that you don’t recognize, such as “inequitable,” you can usually get some sense of its meaning based on context. Here, answer choice (D) is parsing out federal expenditures across “various states” and comparing them in some way, whereas the stimulus explicitly referred twice to total federal expenditures on a nationwide basis, without comparing across states. So even if “inequitable” is unfamiliar to you, (D) is unlikely to be correct because its reference to “various states” is making a comparison that is at odds with the discussion of federal expenditures in the stimulus as a single, nationwide entity. In those circumstances, I would look for an answer that was a better match to the presentation of the stimulus.

This was definitely a tricky question, due to the unusual form of the stimulus! I hope this helps to make sense of how this sort of question can be approached.
Laura

[Johnclem]

Hi.
I had trouble identifying the main point - I saw both conclusions as the main point. This is how I approached this question and really saw both conclusions passing my therefore test. Could you please let me know how you as an expert would approach this ?



1- why? There has been a loss in topsoil.
2- why? Federal spending has remained at a ridiculously low level .
3- why? Total spending for nationwide has been less than some individual states.
C: one resource has been ignored for too long .

OR

1- why ? There has been a loss in topsoil.
2- why? one resource has been ignored for too long .
3- why? Total spending for nationwide has been less than some individual states.
C: federal expenditures for nationwide soil conservation programs have remained at ridiculously low levels.


Much appreciated
John

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hi John,

Thanks for the question! The second sentence here is the main conclusion - everything else is information used to support the argument being made, and the argument is that topsoil has been ignored for too long. The "ridiculously low levels" part is supporting the idea that topsoil has been ignored.

Does that help?

[Johnclem]

Hello again,
I am still having trouble seeing how E is the correct answer. Especially if the second sentence as you state is the main conclusion.

Second sentence : " one resource has been ignored for too long.
E) the federal government should spend much more on soil conservation that it has been spending. ( I don't see how this is a prephrase of the main point.)




Is it possible that there are two cores happening in this argument ? ( they both pass the therefore test . I see both of these conclusions supporting one another ).

One resource has been ignored -> federal spending have remained ridiculously low
federal spending have remained ridiculously low-> One resource has been ignored

Thank you
John

[BethRibet]

Hi Johnclem,

Thanks for writing.

While the conclusion only says that that this resource has been "ignored for too long", the subsequent sentences tell us what the author means by "ignored" -- namely that the federal government has put very little money into soil conservation. Therefore, we can logically infer that the author's point is that the government should spend more money on soil conservation. For instance, if we substitute "has spent too little money on soil conservation" for the word "ignored" in the conclusion, then it is a paraphrase of answer choice E. This is why E is correct.

I hope this helps!

Beth