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Difficulty: EasyEvaluating Relevance for Adding or Deleting Content

Sea otters are among the few marine mammals known to use tools. To crack open the hard shells of prey like clams and mussels, an otter will float on its back, place a flat rock on its chest, and hammer the shellfish against the rock. _Many people enjoy visiting aquariums to watch sea otters swim and play._ This tool-use behavior is not just a clever trick; it is a vital survival skill passed down from mothers to their pups.

The writer is considering deleting the underlined sentence. Should the writer make this deletion?

  1. Yes, because it interrupts the paragraph's focus on how sea otters use tools to feed.Answer
  2. B
    Yes, because it suggests that sea otters can only survive in public aquariums.
  3. C
    No, because it provides helpful context about where sea otters can be observed by the public.
  4. D
    No, because it explains why sea otters need to float on their backs to eat.

Answer

The sentence should be deleted because it interrupts the paragraph's focus on how sea otters use tools to feed.
The paragraph focuses on how wild sea otters use tools (rocks) to crack open food shells, which is a vital survival skill. The underlined sentence, which discusses people visiting aquariums to watch sea otters, deviates from this central topic. Therefore, the sentence should be deleted because it disrupts the paragraph's cohesive focus.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the main focus of the paragraph.
The paragraph describes the unique tool-use behavior of sea otters (using rocks to crack shells to get food) and explains that this is a vital survival skill.
Determining the main idea allows us to evaluate whether the underlined sentence supports or distracts from it.
2
Analyze the underlined sentence to see if it aligns with the paragraph's focus.
The underlined sentence mentions people watching sea otters in public aquariums. This is unrelated to the biological and evolutionary tool-use behaviors of wild sea otters.
This step determines whether the sentence is relevant to the topic.
3
Evaluate the choices to find the one that correctly identifies the decision and the rhetorical reason.
The decision is to delete the sentence, and the correct reason is that it interrupts the paragraph's focus on tool use.
This leads directly to selecting the correct answer.

Key Concept

Evaluating Relevance for Adding or Deleting Content
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Topics

Evaluating Relevance for Adding or Deleting Content

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