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Difficulty: EasyEvaluating Relevance for Adding or Deleting Content

[1] In 1938, Ruth Wakefield, owner of the Toll House Inn in Massachusetts, made culinary history when she decided to chop up a bar of semi-sweet chocolate and add it to her cookie dough. [2] She had expected the chocolate chunks to melt and swirl into the dough, but they instead retained their shape, creating the first chocolate chip cookie. [3] Over the years, many bakers have experimented with other cookie recipes, such as oatmeal raisin and peanut butter. [4] The recipe became an instant sensation among her guests, prompting Nestlé to print the Toll House recipe on their chocolate wrappers in exchange for providing Wakefield with a lifetime supply of chocolate.

The writer is considering deleting Sentence [3] from the passage. Should Sentence [3] be kept or deleted?

  1. A
    Kept, because it provides necessary context about other popular cookie variations that competed with Wakefield's invention.
  2. B
    Kept, because it transitionally connects Wakefield's initial experiment to the commercial success described in Sentence [4].
  3. Deleted, because it introduces details about other cookie flavors that distract from the paragraph's focus on the creation of the chocolate chip cookie.Answer
  4. D
    Deleted, because it contradicts the paragraph's claim that Wakefield was the only baker inventing new recipes in 1938.

Answer

Deleted, because it introduces details about other cookie flavors that distract from the paragraph's focus on the creation of the chocolate chip cookie.
The correct option is correct because the paragraph is strictly focused on the invention and success of the chocolate chip cookie. Sentence 3 introduces details about other cookie flavors (oatmeal raisin and peanut butter) and other bakers, which deviates from this specific topic and interrupts the flow of the passage.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the primary topic and focus of the paragraph.
The paragraph describes how Ruth Wakefield invented the chocolate chip cookie at her inn and its subsequent popularity.
Establishing the paragraph's main focus is essential for determining if individual sentences are relevant.
2
Analyze the purpose and content of Sentence 3.
Sentence 3 discusses other bakers experimenting with oatmeal raisin and peanut butter cookie recipes.
Evaluating the specific content of the sentence reveals whether it supports or departs from the main topic.
3
Decide whether the sentence should be kept or deleted, and select the correct rhetorical justification.
The sentence should be deleted because it introduces irrelevant information about other cookie flavors, which distracts from the narrative about the chocolate chip cookie.
Comparing the sentence content to the paragraph focus shows that it is an irrelevant distraction, which matches the option advising deletion due to distraction.

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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