Question

Difficulty: EasyEvaluating Relevance for Adding or Deleting Content

Old Faithful, a famous geyser in Yellowstone National Park, erupts with remarkable predictability. Visitors from all over the world gather to watch the geyser shoot boiling water high into the air. [1] Early cameras required long exposure times to capture clear images of moving water. Many of these tourists wait patiently on the wooden boardwalk, cameras in hand, for the next eruption to begin.

Should the writer keep or delete Sentence 1?

  1. A
    Keep it, because it provides historical context about the cameras that tourists are using to take photos.
  2. B
    Keep it, because it explains why moving water is difficult to photograph.
  3. Delete it, because it introduces details about photography history that distract from the paragraph's focus on watching the geyser erupt.Answer
  4. D
    Delete it, because it contradicts the idea that the tourists are waiting patiently.

Answer

Delete it, because it introduces details about photography history that distract from the paragraph's focus on watching the geyser erupt.
The correct answer is to delete the sentence because it introduces details about photography history that distract from the paragraph's focus on watching the geyser erupt. The paragraph is centered on tourists waiting for and watching the eruption of Old Faithful. Introducing historical details about camera exposure times deviates from this focus, making the sentence irrelevant.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the primary focus of the paragraph.
The paragraph describes tourists gathering at Yellowstone National Park to watch Old Faithful erupt.
Understanding the main topic of the paragraph is necessary to evaluate whether a sentence belongs in it.
2
Analyze the content of the sentence in question (Sentence 1).
Sentence 1 discusses the history of early cameras and their long exposure times.
This determines what specific information the sentence adds to the passage.
3
Evaluate the relevance of Sentence 1 to the paragraph's focus and choose the correct decision.
The detail about early photography history is irrelevant to the experience of modern tourists watching a geyser. Therefore, the sentence should be deleted.
Irrelevant sentences interrupt the flow of a passage and should be removed.

Key Concept

Evaluating Relevance for Adding or Deleting Content
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