Reading comp PrepTest 155 · Section 3 · Question 9

Passage Summary Topic:
Legal

Paragraph 1

• Paragraph note
  • Problem (potential conflicts over water) and one attempted solution (ILC treaty structure)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Cause-and-effect relationships, according to the author:
    • Increasing populations, development, and water shortages have caused water to become the world's most valuable resource (first sentence)
    • The growing importance of water has caused the potential for conflicts over water resources like rivers (second sentence)
    • Nations' realization that they need to cooperate to protect rivers has caused the UN ILC to develop a treaty structure (last sentence)
  • Author's attitude: "rapidly" (first sentence); "dwindling" (first sentence); "fast replacing" (first sentence); "growing importance of water" (second sentence); "threats" (third sentence); "acutely aware" (third sentence); "need for international cooperation" (last sentence)

Paragraph 2

• Paragraph note
  • Details of ILC Draft Articles (guidelines for treaty-formation based on customary principles and accepted law)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • List of principles ILC Draft Articles recommend for treates:
    • Use of river shouldn't harm another nation (last sentence)
    • Every nation's use should be equitable and reasonable (last sentence)
    • Nations should work to protect ecosystems (last sentence)

Paragraph 3

• Paragraph note
  • Author's criticism of ILC (doesn't address changing water levels)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Author's view
    • The ILC Draft Articles are a step forward but "inadequate" because they don't address future environmental changes, like changing water levels (first through last sentences)
  • Cause-and-effect relationships, according to the author:
    • An increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide causes the greenhouse effect and warmer temperatures, which causes decreased participation and increased runoff from snow (second through last sentences)
  • Author's attitude: "significant step forward" (first sentence); "inadequate because they do not provide satisfactory ways of dealing with possible future environmental changes" (first sentence); "significant environmental threat" (second sentence); "likely to have a number of dramatic effects on water levels" (last sentence); "more importantly" (last sentence)

Paragraph 4

• Paragraph note
  • More of the author's criticisms (allocating a fixed amount of water will be unfair as water levels change) and possible solution
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Author's view:
    • The Draft Articles recommend allocating fixed amounts of water, which doesn't address changes to water levels and will therefore favor countries with higher usage (first through third sentence)
    • This problem could be avoided if the Draft Articles were more flexible (fourth through last sentence)
  • Examples of ways to make the Draft Articles more flexible, according to the author:
    • Allocating water based on proportional usage or having plans for specific changes (last sentence)
  • Author's attitude: "will not be flexible enough" (first sentence); "would have no mechanism for coping" (second sentence); "unjustly favor" (third sentence); "circumvent this problem" (fourth sentence)

Main Point:
The UN ILC's proposed treaty structure is a step forward in addressing a current problem, but it's inadequate because it doesn't address what will happen to changes in water levels in the future.

Key Lines?
Paragraph 1, Sentence 4 (P1, S4) - Potential solution to a problem
P3, S1 - Summary of the author's opinion of the solution

Meta-Structure?
Problem/Solution: This passage best fits the Problem/Solution Meta-Structure*. The author describes a problem with the increasing risk of international conflict over water sources and one potential solution — the United Nations' ILC Draft Articles, which recommend guidelines in the formation of treaties regarding rivers and other watercourses that flow through more than one country. The author even layers another problem and solution on this general framework. The author describes a problem with the ILC solution and briefly discusses how to solve one of those problems. Still, it's easiest to understand this passage if we consider the growing risk of conflict as the passage's central problem and the ILC's Draft Articles as the passage's central solution.

In a Problem/Solution passage, the author's opinion of the proposed solution is the passage's main point. The author has a fairly critical opinion of ILC's Draft Articles, an opinion summarized in the first sentence of the third paragraph. We can use that sentence to help us with any question that requires us to consider the passage's main point.

*Some may argue that this is a Criticizing a Viewpoint or Correcting the Record passage — understandably so, since this author is fairly critical of the proposed solution. If you went with either of these, that's OK! You'd wind up with the same main point and big-picture understanding of the passage described above. Let's remember that the Meta-Structures are here to help us think about the overarching structure and ideas in a passage. We don't have to agree on which Meta-Structure a passage has to realize the benefits of the Meta-Structures.

Causality: The most prominent minor Meta-Structure in this passage is causality. The author describes several cause-and-effect relationships in the passage, and at least one of them is likely to factor into a question. To help us locate and review these relationships, we recommend highlighting the causal words, like "increased" (P1, S2), "led to" (P1, S4), "resulting" (P3, S3), "arising from" (P3, S3), and "due to" (P3, S3).

Last Thoughts?
It'll likely be important to note that although the author focuses on problems with the proposed Draft Articles, the author still says they're a "significant step forward" (P3, S1). So, the author is not entirely down on the Draft Articles. This concession might factor into a Tone question or two.