#20 - Purpose/Function, Must Be True, Specific Reference

[edacyu]

Hi,

I'm struggling with why the correct answer is chosen to be C over D. I felt that, throughout the passage, the author expressed their frustration with the historian's concern over the structure of science history novels (which would translate to form in this answer choice) and that that opinion took precedence over the fact that historians had been unable to put "innovative ideas" into practice.

[Malila Robinson]

Hi Edacyu,
In D the focus is on the way information is presented, not the actual content of the info. Writing style is discussed in the previous paragraph. But in the 4th paragraph with line 45, the focus is on content. This makes C the correct answer choice because it is focusing on content over form.
Hope that helps!
-Malila

[Katherinthesky]

Hello,

I can see why (C) is correct, but I was thrown off by (C)'s incorporation of the word "unable to," when the passage only mentions "proven difficult." I ended up crossing out (C) because I thought the leap from "proven difficult" (passage) to "unable to" (answer C) couldn't be justified.

Could this just simply be a case of finding out the correct answer via process of elimination (i.e., all the other answers are just comparatively worse)?
What am I missing here?
Thank you in advance!

[Jeremy Press]

Hi Katherinthesky,

I don't think you're missing much here, and I agree that this is a case of choosing the best answer, in part by eliminating other answers that simply don't capture the primary issue here (as is often true in Reading Comprehension).

We can tell what the primary issue is by looking at the sentence itself: "Despite decades of rhetoric from historians of science about the need to unite issues deemed "internal" to science (scientific theory and practice) and those considered "external" to it (social issues, structures, and beliefs), that dichotomy has proven difficult to set aside." In other words, in spite of what they say (their rhetoric), scientists haven't lived up to the lofty rhetoric. Which answer best captures the idea that scientists have failed to live up to their statements? That's answer choice C. None of the other answers get even close to that essence of scientists saying one thing but not living up to it in practice.

Is the language of answer choice C just a tad strong for the passage language, as you noted? Yes, I'll give you that. But there's no other answer that captures the essence of "saying one thing, but not actually doing it." So we live with answer choice C (something that does happen in both LR and RC occasionally, maybe more frequently than many of us would like!).

Hope this helps!