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Difficulty: HardEvaluating Relevance for Adding or Deleting Content

The ancient Greek theater of Epidaurus, constructed in the fourth century BCE, is renowned for its extraordinary acoustics. Performers on the open-air stage can be heard clearly by spectators seated in the top rows, some sixty meters away. For decades, researchers debated the mechanism behind this phenomenon. In 2007, acoustic experts discovered that the secret lies in the theater’s limestone seats. The theater, which could accommodate up to 14,000 spectators, was designed by the architect Polykleitos the Younger. The researchers found that the corrugated surface of the seats acts as a natural sound filter, reflecting high-frequency sounds—such as the actors' voices—toward the audience while absorbing low-frequency background noise like the rustle of wind and the murmur of the crowd.

The writer is considering deleting the underlined sentence. Should the sentence be kept or deleted?

  1. A
    Keep it, because it provides essential context about the size of the audience required to test the theater's acoustic properties.
  2. B
    Keep it, because it identifies the architect responsible for building the limestone seats described in the paragraph.
  3. Delete it, because it interrupts the explanation of the theater's acoustics with details about its seating capacity and architect.Answer
  4. D
    Delete it, because it repeats information about the physical layout of the limestone seats that is explained later in the paragraph.

Answer

Delete it, because it interrupts the explanation of the theater's acoustics with details about its seating capacity and architect.
The correct option is correct because the paragraph is focused entirely on the acoustic properties of the Epidaurus theater, explaining how researchers solved the mystery of how sound travels so well in the open air. The underlined sentence introduces unrelated historical and biographical facts about the theater's capacity and architect, which interrupts the explanation of how the limestone seats act as a sound filter.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the primary topic of the paragraph.
The paragraph explains the extraordinary acoustics of the Epidaurus theater and the scientific reason (limestone seats filtering sound) behind this phenomenon.
Understanding the paragraph's specific focus is necessary to evaluate if the sentence contributes to that focus.
2
Analyze the content and function of the underlined sentence.
The underlined sentence discusses the theater's seating capacity (14,000 spectators) and its architect (Polykleitos the Younger).
Determining what information the sentence adds helps evaluate its relevance.
3
Evaluate the relevance of the underlined sentence to the paragraph's topic.
The capacity and architect are unrelated to the acoustic mechanism. Placing this sentence between the discovery of the limestone seats and the explanation of their filtering effect breaks the paragraph's logical flow.
This establishes that the sentence should be deleted because it is irrelevant and disruptive.
4
Select the option that matches the decision to delete and provides the correct rhetorical reason.
The option suggesting deletion because it interrupts the explanation of acoustics with details about capacity and the architect is the correct choice.
Only one option correctly identifies the need for deletion and justifies it based on paragraph cohesion.

Key Concept

Evaluating Relevance for Adding or Deleting Content
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Evaluating Relevance for Adding or Deleting Content

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