Interesting RC query - Experts Comment Needed

[vikram4689]

Please read the passage ( passage no. 3 in Kaplan GMAT 2010 )

https://books.google.co.in/books?id=bJv9 ... &q&f=false

My question is regarding Q.18

I am confused b/w option A and B. After contemplating, I concluded that
if question is Primary Purpose of this paragraph then answer should be B BUT
if question is Why author primarily included this paragraph then answer should be A

Please advise whether what i think i correct or not.

[vikram4689]

Experts please reply - this is about building concepts.

[rohu27]

I am confused b/w option A and B. After contemplating, I concluded that
if question is Primary Purpose of this paragraph then answer should be B BUT
if question is Why author primarily included this paragraph then answer should be A

well the question does ask for the main purpose of the para, so it has to B.
i dnt see how A can be the answer.

[vikram4689]

My reason for A :
A - Author said that Dom Pedro realized that Southerners can be beneficial for Brazil so he offered them to move to Brazil. This paragraph shows how Southerners were helpful to Brazilian people.

[lunarpower]

received a PM about this.

what's interesting is that your justification given above contains *exactly* the reason why you should have picked B, not A: (see red highlight)

My reason for A :
A - Author said that Dom Pedro realized that Southerners can be beneficial for Brazil so he offered them to move to Brazil. This paragraph shows how Southerners were helpful to Brazilian people.

that's the content of choice (b), almost verbatim; you've just made a pretty compelling case for choice (b), not choice (a).

two lessons that you should get from this one:
(1) GO WITH WHAT IS ACTUALLY THERE
when you are asked for the main purpose of a single paragraph (or some other unit that's smaller than the whole passage), you need to stick with the information that is given in that unit.
unless the question prompt actually says something like "In the larger context of the passage, the purpose of this part is ...?" or "How does this paragraph relate to the other part xxxxx?", you should NOT get any information from outside the unit in question.

... and, much, much more importantly:
(2) ON MAIN IDEA & AUTHOR'S PURPOSE QUESTIONS, COVER UP THE ANSWER CHOICES AND PREDICT THE ANSWER YOURSELF!!
had you done this here, you would have given the red highlighted statement above, and it would have been quite clear that the correct answer to the problem is (b). however, you allowed yourself to be swayed by reading the answer choices; if you simply hadn't read the choices before answering the question, that would not have happened.
you should ALWAYS be able to predict the answers to these questions yourself; you should not need the answer choices to do so. on these questions, the other answer choices are just dangerous distractions; make a prediction "cold", and then STICK WITH IT.

[lunarpower]

for any people reading this thread outside india, you can access the page by taking out ".co.in" in the given link and replacing it with ".com" (or .com.ar, or .co.jp, or the corresponding suffix for whatever country you happen to be in).

[vikram4689]

Thanks Ron, Understood the point. To solidify the point,I would like to restate my original question

if question is "Primary Purpose of this paragraph" then answer should be B BUT
if question is "Why author primarily included this paragraph" then answer should be A

AM i correct in stating above lines. As you mentioned, in the 2nd line (above) questions asks purpose of paragraph in context of whole passage so answer should cover broader aspect.

[lunarpower]

Thanks Ron, Understood the point. To solidify the point,I would like to restate my original question

if question is "Primary Purpose of this paragraph" then answer should be B BUT
if question is "Why author primarily included this paragraph" then answer should be A

AM i correct in stating above lines. As you mentioned, in the 2nd line (above) questions asks purpose of paragraph in context of whole passage so answer should cover broader aspect.

still too vague to make that connection with 100% certainty. remember that these things are EXTREMELY precise; if they wanted you to make a cross-passage connection like that, they would have to point you to that part of the passage, in one way or another.
for instance, they could say
"Which of the following is an example of the "agricultural and educational knowledge" that Dom Pedro anticipated (lines 12-13)?
and then you'd pick a choice (or choices, if it were a roman numeral problem) corresponding to the specific examples in that paragraph.

in general, you won't have to make cross-passage connections to specific facts unless you are POINTED to those facts. otherwise, the questions would just be unreasonable -- if the question is about the third paragraph, they can't reasonably expect you to remember something *that* specific from the first paragraph, unless they give you some sort of extremely specific hint.

[lunarpower]

in other words, the only cross-passage connections you'll be expected to make spontaneously are those at the main idea level -- not at the level of specifics.

[Target2009]

IMO - B..

[mundasingh123]

Hi ron ,
The topic sentecne ie the first line of the paragraph always introduces the para and lets readers know about whats going to follow in the para .
The 1st line of the 3rd para is

While becoming integrated into the existing society , these colonists maintained their distinctive American Culture .

If we just try to predict about how this para relates to the passage , we might say " This para tells us that southerners continue to preserve their American Culture "
But if we read further , we get to know about the benefits that southerners brought to brazil. Q18 which asks us how the 3rd para relates to the passage . But the 1st line of the 3rd para which is

While becoming integrated into the existing society , these colonists maintained their distinctive American Culture .

is different from what follows about the benefits that southerners brought to brazil

[lunarpower]

The 1st line of the 3rd para is

While becoming integrated into the existing society , these colonists maintained their distinctive American Culture .

If we just try to predict about how this para relates to the passage , we might say " This para tells us that southerners continue to preserve their American Culture "

right ... but this is why you actually have to skim the paragraphs!
topic sentences have 2 possible functions: (a) to give a brief intro to (and *sometimes* a summary of) the paragraph, and (b) to segue into the current paragraph from the previous paragraph.

i.e., topic sentences don't *have* to be summaries of what's about to be said; sometimes they are just introductions or transitions. that is what's happening here.
(notice that the first sentence of the 2nd paragraph is also a transition, rather than a summary.)

[mundasingh123]

But Ron whats the connection between

While becoming integrated into the existing society , these colonists maintained their distinctive American Culture .

and the benefits that the southerners brought to Brazil
Does it mean that southerners continued to practise american best practices because of which Brazilian agriculture prospered

[lunarpower]

But Ron whats the connection between

While becoming integrated into the existing society , these colonists maintained their distinctive American Culture .

and the benefits that the southerners brought to Brazil
Does it mean that southerners continued to practise american best practices because of which Brazilian agriculture prospered

yes.

if you skim through the content of that paragraph, this connection becomes quite clear --
"american technology allowed ... to improve ... for their fellow brazilians"
"the colonists' emphasis on ... also contributed to brazil's success ..."
etc. etc.
basically the entire paragraph is a series of repetitions of the following theme: "the colonists brought thing X from america, and thing X had benefits for the brazilians."

if you aren't noticing stuff like that, then you are probably trying much too hard to think in terms of rules and logic, and probably not thinking nearly enough about what is actually going on in the paragraph.
you CANNOT approach questions like these with rules and logic! (that's why there are so many of them on the test -- the test is designed to be largely impenetrable without active critical thinking.)

the issue here is that you've got to stop thinking of these paragraphs as "academic" and start thinking of them as similar to the sort of reading that you would do for pleasure (or reading the news, etc.)
when you do pleasure reading, or when you read the news, you *never* think in terms of "rules that tell you where to look" -- you just look at the words and try to understand the big idea of what is happening. you might recall a few random details here and there, but the random details are not the main point.
i think the problem here is that you're thinking of these passages as "academic" -- which is a disaster if your academic reading has been highly technical or scientific in nature, and thus consisting mostly or entirely of details rather than main ideas.
if you start reading these things the way you'd read a novel or short story, you will probably find that questions like this one get a lot easier rather quickly.