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Question

Difficulty: MediumSentence Addition and Deletion Decisions

[1] In the winter of 1902, during a visit to New York City, Mary Anderson observed a trolley driver struggling to see through the falling sleet. [2] The driver had to keep opening the front window pane, letting the freezing rain into the vehicle, just to clear the glass by hand. [3] Shocked by the discomfort and danger this caused, Anderson set out to find a solution. [4] New York City's trolley system was one of the largest in the country at the time, utilizing electric streetcars to transport thousands of commuters daily. [5] Upon returning to her home in Alabama, she designed a wooden lever connected to a rubber blade that could be operated from inside the vehicle.

The writer is considering deleting Sentence 4 from the paragraph. Should this sentence be kept or deleted?

  1. A
    Kept, because it provides essential context about the scale of the transportation system that Anderson was trying to improve.
  2. B
    Kept, because it establishes that New York City was the location where Anderson first tested her prototype.
  3. Deleted, because it shifts the focus of the paragraph from Anderson’s invention process to tangential details about New York City's transit system.Answer
  4. D
    Deleted, because it contradicts the statement that the driver had to open the window to clear the glass by hand.

Answer

Deleted, because it shifts the focus of the paragraph from Anderson’s invention process to tangential details about New York City's transit system.
The correct answer correctly identifies that the sentence should be deleted because it introduces irrelevant details about the New York City trolley system. The paragraph's primary focus is Mary Anderson's invention of the windshield wiper, tracking her process from observation to design. Sentence 4 disrupts this narrative flow by shifting the focus to general details about transit infrastructure.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the primary topic and focus of the paragraph.
The paragraph describes Mary Anderson's invention of the windshield wiper, beginning with her observation of a problem (Sentences 1 and 2), her motivation (Sentence 3), and her prototype design (Sentence 5).
Establishing the main narrative focus is necessary to evaluate if Sentence 4 supports or disrupts the coherence of the paragraph.
2
Evaluate the relevance of Sentence 4 to this primary topic.
Sentence 4 introduces information about the size and operation of New York City's trolley system. This information is tangential because the paragraph is focused on Anderson's design process, not the history or scale of the city's transit infrastructure.
Determining whether a sentence contains crucial or distracting details helps decide if it should be added or deleted.
3
Evaluate the options to find the correct decision and explanation.
The option advising that the sentence should be deleted because it introduces tangential details about the transit system is correct.
This accurately reflects the paragraph's shift in focus and follows standard ACT guidelines for unity and cohesion.

Key Concept

Evaluating whether a sentence should be kept or deleted based on its relevance to the paragraph's specific focus.
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Topics

Sentence Addition and Deletion Decisions

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