Question

Difficulty: EasySelecting Concluding Sentences and Transitions

In 1968, Dr. Spencer Silver, a chemist at 3M, developed a "low-tack" adhesive that stuck lightly to surfaces and could be easily removed without leaving residue. For years, Silver promoted his invention within the company, but no one could find a practical use for it. The breakthrough came in 1974 when colleague Art Fry used the adhesive to keep bookmarks from falling out of his hymnal during choir practice. Fry realized that the sticky paper was perfect for leaving temporary notes on documents. [1]

The writer wants to conclude the paragraph at point [1] with a sentence that highlights the subsequent commercial success and global popularity of the invention. Which option best achieves this goal?

  1. Soon after, 3M launched the product nationwide, and Post-it Notes quickly became an essential office tool used worldwide.Answer
  2. B
    Fry also enjoyed singing in his local church choir every week, which kept him busy on weekends.
  3. C
    Today, millions of office workers use these sticky notes daily, they are sold in over one hundred countries.
  4. D
    After the company approved the project, 3M manufactures the notes and distributed them to retail stores.

Answer

The option stating that 3M launched the product nationwide, making Post-it Notes an essential office tool used worldwide, is the correct choice.
The option describing 3M launching the product nationwide and Post-it Notes becoming an essential tool worldwide is correct because it directly addresses the writer's goal of highlighting commercial success and global popularity. It also logically concludes the paragraph by showing what happened after Fry realized the usefulness of the adhesive.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the writer's specific goal from the prompt.
The goal is to find a concluding sentence that highlights the commercial success and global popularity of the invention.
Understanding the constraint in the prompt allows us to filter out options that do not address these specific points.
2
Evaluate the choices for relevance to the goal and grammatical correctness.
The correct option highlights both the commercial launch and the worldwide usage of the notes without any grammatical errors. Other choices either introduce off-topic details, contain a comma splice, or have a verb tense error.
This step ensures that the selected option is both rhetorically effective and grammatically correct.

Key Concept

Selecting an effective concluding sentence requires choosing an option that directly satisfies the writer's specified rhetorical goal while maintaining grammatical consistency with the rest of the passage.
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