Reading comp PrepTest 126 · Section 2 · Question 10

Topic: Science

Paragraph 1 - Prairie research council report

• Paragraph note
  • Effects of introduction of purple loosestrife (bad)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
  • Intro - Early 1800s by settlers
  • Spread throughout midlatitude wetlands
  • 50% of native biomass displaced, and weed blocks maintaining themselves
  • Wildlife - Not well studied, hurt birds and furbearing animals, threaten endangered vertebrates
  • Faster in disturbed habitats
  • Can’t stop with digging weeds out (just slow); Glyphosate works but could hurt native plants

Paragraph 2

• Paragraph note
  • Future
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
  • Need to find means of control
  • Current - Need to detect early and eradicate; can’t control after takes hold

Paragraph 1 - Journal of sociology

• Paragraph note
  • Argument of scientific community (Author disagrees)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
  • Scientific community - Purple loosestrife a scourge to be battled to save nature
  • Author hints that he disagrees (“apparently”, “is portrayed”, “the...literature discusses”, “according to the scientific community”)

Paragraph 2

• Paragraph note
  • Real motive behind war against loosestrife
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
  • Driven by desire to control nature (human desires)
  • Birds - Only one threatened by loosestrife
  • Furbearing mammals - None threatened by loosestrife
  • Impact - Lower these populations, cutting into profits that can be made on them

Main Points:

Passage A - Purple loosestrife is an environmental scourge that must be controlled, but current means of doing so are inadequate.

Passage B - The war on purple loosestrife isn’t a war to protect nature but rather to control it, allowing people to continue to make money off of more valuable natural resources.

Passage A:

• Lines 5-6 - A list of the negative effects of purple loosestrife is started
• Lines 24-26 - What is needed long-term

Passage B:

• Lines 30-33 - An opposing point is noted
• Lines 46-50 - The Author’s viewpoint, calling into question the opposing point (or, at least, it’s motives)
• Lines 53-55 - One premise of the opposing point is undermined
• Lines 57-58 - Another premise of the opposing point is undermined
• Lines 59-62 - The true motive is explained

These passages are strongly related, staking out separate sides of the same debate. That debate is over the fight against purple loosestrife. Passage A argues that it’s an environmental scourge that’s hurting local wildlife (Lines 5-8; most of Paragraph 1), and thus means to control its spread must be developed (Lines 24-26), as current ones are inadequate (Lines 18-23). Passage B directly attacks the scientific literature that makes this argument (Lines 36-40) - in other words, it directly attacks Passage A - to say that any efforts to control loosestrife are based on a desire to control nature (Lines 46-50) and exploit it for economic gain (Lines 59-62). Passage B even goes directly after the evidence presented in Passage A - the discussion of the threat to native waterfowl and furbearing mammal populations.

List (Passage A) - Passage A presents a list of effects of purple loosestrife on native wildlife throughout Paragraph 1, so we should expect some questions about elements on that list.

Rebuttal (Passage B) - Passage B directly rebuts the argument in Passage A, calling out the “scientific literature” of which it’s an example and directly rebutting specific claims made in that passage (about waterfowl and furbearing mammals).

It’s pretty rare that we get sources for a passage, let alone both passages in a comparative set. You should absolutely have noted the two sources, as that could help you determine the likely tone and focus of the passages. Both are academic in nature, while the former was more likely to focus on nature/science and the latter on a human aspect of whatever is being discussed. There was a bit more opinion in each than we might have expected (“disastrous”; “liberate” and “tyrannical”), but that becomes noteworthy since it goes against our expectations - and thus it “sticks” in our mind better!

Also, Passage B is a great exercise in two things. First, reading an Author’s negative opinion of an opposing view that it’s explaining. In Paragraph 1, the Author of Passage B presents the argument made in Passage A. There are, however, a lot of examples of language that suggests he doesn’t buy that argument. Things such as “apparently” and “is portrayed...as” - words that show he doesn’t fully buy that view. Second, not buying into a main point too early. If you missed those language cues and the pivot in Paragraph 2, the questions would be much harder, as you might think that the Authors of Passages A and B are much more aligned than they actually are!