Reading comp PrepTest 135 · Section 3 · Question 10

Passage

Questions 8-13  .        While recent decades have seen more information  . recorded than any other era, the potential for Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Social Science


Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Problem introduced (greater potential for losing material) and examples of durable and unstable materials
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Comparison, according to the author/archivists:
      • There's now more info recorded than ever, but it's at a greater risk of being lost than older recordings (first through third sentences)
    • Examples of durable recordings, according to the author:
      • Mesopotamian tablets, medieval parchment (still looking fresh), black-and-white photographs (fourth through last sentence)
    • Examples of unstable recordings, according to the author:
      • Acidic paper, color photos, videotapes (fourth through last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "now greater than ever" (first sentence); "great concern" (second sentence); "still look as though they were copied yesterday" (fourth sentence); "already unreadable" (fourth sentence)

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • Possible solution (computer storage) and an issue with that solution (becomes obsolete quickly)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Author's view:
      • Transferring documents to electronic formats would seem to offer a solution, but technology changes and can make it risky to use these formats (first and second sentences)
      • And yet, archivists are running out of time (last sentence)
    • Examples of unstable computer storage, according to the author:
      • Disks can't be read with new hard/software; digital storage tapes are only good for a decade (third and fourth sentences)
    • Author's attitude: "would seem" (first sentence); "may not now be retrievable" (third sentence); "quickly running out of time" (last sentence)

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Another issue (the amount of deteriorating material makes choosing valuable documents to store difficult)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Author's view:
      • New technologies might allow preservation, but archivists will still have a difficult time sorting the valuable documents worth preserving from the not valuable documents in time to preserve these documents (first, second, and last sentences)
    • Examples of valuable documents that were preserved, according to the author:
      • Homer/Virgil copied and saved due to their popularity (third sentence)
      • Great works, like those of Plato, were almost lost (fourth sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "may soon provide" (first sentence); "will have to be made quickly" (first sentence); "Ideally" (second sentence); "should be informed by an assessment of the value" (third sentence); "great work" (fourth sentence); "Undoubtedly, many important works have no survived" (fifth sentence); "danger" (last sentence); "sheer volume" (last sentence); "make it virtually impossible" (last sentence); "sort the essential from the dispensable" (last sentence)

Main Point: The high volume of information recorded, coupled with the decreased durability of recording materials, has created a problem for long-term storage that needs to be addressed before important documents are lost.

Meta-Structure?

Problem/Solution: This passage most closely fits the common Problem/Solution Meta-Structure.* The author kicks off the passage by noting a problem — information is at risk of being lost. The author offers a possible solution but then highlights a problem with this solution (speed of obsolescence) before bringing up other aspects of the problem (decisions need to be made fast). So, this passage presents a problem and a solution, even if the problem is big and the solution is imperfect.

In general, the main point of a Problem/Solution passage is the author's preferred solution or their opinion on an offered solution. Here, the only solution is considered insufficient, and the author notes that the clock is ticking as we try to find one that works, so those aspects of the problem should be noted in the main point.

Examples: The most prominent minor Meta-Structure is examples. Throughout the passage, the author presents several sets of examples, so it's important to be able to quickly find them. So, it can help if we highlight or underline these examples. In Paragraph 1, the author lists examples of ancient documents that have been preserved and modern ones that are falling apart (P1, S4-S5). In Paragraph 2, the author lists storage technologies that won't solve the storage problem (P2, S3-S4). And in Paragraph 3, works that did and didn't survive over time are noted (P3, S3_S4).

Last Thoughts?

Those lists of examples took up so much space that we should expect there to be a few questions asking about them, so let's be sure to head back to the passage when they come up in the questions!

Question prompt

The passage most strongly Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: A

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Question Type

Social Science

Strategy Overview

Review the main point, and use notes or highlighted/underlined text in the passage to recall the author’s attitude, and find the answer that best reflects your understanding of the main point/author’s attitude

Answer Anticipation

This question asks us about the author's view, but doesn't provide any insight into the topic of the correct answer or where the supporting information might show up in the passage. This means the correct answer is likely to relate back to the author's main point. As such, we'll need to rely on our big-picture understanding of the passage to answer this question. We should start by reminding ourselves of the main point (either by reviewing what we said after reading the passage or by rereading our answer to the main point question). We can also review any notes about the author's attitude or any text we highlighted because it expresses the author's opinion. After doing that, we can head to the answer choices, tabling those that don't line up with the main point. For those answer choices that conform to the author’s main point, we'll use our notes and the passage to see if they're correct.

Answer choices

  1. A
    Archivists have little choice Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A matches the stem

    (A) Is this consistent with the author's main point or attitude, as reflected in our notes?

    The author's main point stresses the need to store information "before important documents are lost." And our note for the second paragraph poses computer storage as a "[p]ossible solution," even if there's an issue with that solution. So, this answer choice is consistent with those ideas — archivists have to do something, and computer storage is at least a possible solution. Therefore, it's worth checking the passage to see if it's supported.

    Still, this is a tricky answer, and most test-takers may table or eliminate it at first. We know the author views computer storage technology as an insufficient solution to the problem of storing all recorded information. These test-takers may need to circle back to (A) after finding issues with the remaining options.

    If we check the passage, we'll find support that the author would agree with this statement. In the second paragraph, the author says that despite reluctance on the part of archivists to depend on computer technology, "they are also quickly running out of time" (P2, S5). In the third paragraph, the author notes that "new computer technologies are emerging that may soon provide archivists with the information storage durability they require" (P3, S1).

    Taking these two facts together, we can infer that the archivists have to do something and that new computer technologies, although perhaps imperfect, represent the best available solution. As such, the author does suggest that there’s little choice but to convert things like books printed on acidic paper and color photos to computer storage, or they’ll be lost.

  2. B
    Archivists should wait for Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) Is this consistent with the author's main point or attitude, as reflected in our notes?

    This contradicts the author's main point, which stresses the need to store information "before important documents are lost." As we just noted with (A), the author says that the archivists are “quickly running out of time” to store some of these documents. So, the author would not agree that archivists should wait for a truly durable data storage system. We can eliminate (B) without checking the passage.

  3. C
    The problems concerning media Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited

    (C) Is this consistent with the author's main point or attitude, as reflected in our notes?

    No. This cuts against the author's main point, which argues that the high volume of information recorded is another problem facing archivists. Even if the archivists decided to transfer all of these documents to clay tablets, animal parchment, or black-and-white photographs, they'd still have the problem of the amount of information they'd need to transfer. If some deteriorate before the transfer is made, then there would still be a problem with "media durability." So, we can eliminate (C) without checking the passage.

    If we had to check the passage to rule out (C), we'd notice that the author probably disagrees with this statement. The author says that the archivists "are also quickly running out of time" to store materials (P2, S5) and that "new computer technologies are emerging that may soon provide archivists with the information storage durability they require" (P3, S1). These facts — that the archivists have to do something and that new computer technologies, although perhaps imperfect, represent the best available solution — suggest that archivists have no choice but to resort to electronic storage.

  4. D
    Storing paintings, photographs, and Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) Is this consistent with the author's main point or attitude, as reflected in our notes?

    No. Neither the main point nor our notes suggest that it's easier to store text than images. Moreover, this answer choice makes a strong selection, which is difficult to support and thus unlikely to occur in the correct answer to an Author Agree question.

    Therefore, we can eliminate — or at least table — (D) and check the remaining options.

    Besides, we wouldn't find any support for (D) if we re-read the entire passage. The passage simply never makes a broad comparison like this. In fact, the passage suggests that computer technology makes storing "all forms of printed material" easy enough — if not impervious to deterioration (P2, S1).

  5. E
    Generally, the more information Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited

    (E) Is this consistent with the author's main point or attitude, as reflected in our notes?

    No. Neither our main point nor our notes suggest that there's an inversely proportional relationship between the volume of information stored and the durability of the storage. Plus, proportional relationships are extremely difficult to support and unlikely to appear in the correct answer to an Author Agree question. Therefore, we can eliminate — or at least table — (E) and check the remaining options.

    If we had to check the passage to rule out (E), we'd notice that the author brings up an expert who says that the amount of information being generated has increased while the durability of recording media has decreased almost as rapidly (P1, S3). However, this is a loose correlation — not a proportional, sliding-scale-style relationship. Moreover, this correlation applies to all information produced and all storage available. This answer choice says that the more information you try to store in a specific place, the less durable that specific storage solution will be. Therefore, (E) is not supported.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A Credited 72%
  2. B 4%
  3. C 5%
  4. D 3%
  5. E 15%

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