The view has prevailed for the better part of the

[RonPurewal]

hm, i think the question about which you're asking has somehow been lost.

here is the question:

Which of the following best describes the organization of the first paragraph of the passage?

(A) A viewpoint is introduced, counterevidence is presented, and a new perspective is suggested.
(B) Opposing viewpoints are discussed, and evidence is provided that refutes both of those viewpoints.
(C) A hypothesis is described, supported with specific evidence, and then reaffirmed.
(D) An alternative viewpoint is presented, criticized, and dismissed in light of new evidence.
(E) Opposing viewpoints are presented, discussed, and then found to be more similar than previously supposed.

again, notice that the specific nouns have essentially zero importance here—because that's not the skill being tested here.

[AnupamaW260]

those kinds of nouns are, by far, the LEAST important words in the problem (and in any similar problem, too).

in fact, you can ignore them completely.
this is not a vocabulary test; it's a test of whether you can figure out WHY things are here, or what the writers are DOING with those things.
so, you can ignore ALL the words, except for those that actually describe WHAT THE AUTHOR IS DOING:

A/ introduce ... counter ... then new
B/ opposing ... refute both
C/ describe ... support ... reaffirm
D/ alternative ... presented, criticized, dismissed
E/ opposing ... found similar

these are still quite distinct from each other. in fact, it may even be easier to see the distinctions.

Hello Sir
Thank you. I will focus on answer choices, as per your suggestion.

Regards ~

[RonPurewal]

excellent.

[yulongw540]

Dear instructor, I have a questions about this problem, see second paragraph:

However, empirical knowledge about the relative roles of large and small firms is generally based upon anecdotal evidence and case studies, and such evidence has proved inadequate to answer major questions concerning the role of small firms across various industries and nations. An additional difficulty is that it is not obvious what criteria one should use to distinguish small firms from large ones. While a "small firm" is often defined as an enterprise with fewer than 500 employees, research studies of small firms use a wide variety of definitions.

The problem asks "The passage suggests which of the following about the empirical study of small firms' role?". I think "empirical study" refers to "empirical knowledge ", so I tried to find the answer in the first sentence (the bold part).

The second sentence talks about "An additional difficulty...", but it doesn't mention from what kind of study it comes. Do we just assume it is also a part "empirical knowledge"? Or we should decide their relationship by common sense?

For example, if we see following structure:
The ABC study suggests that difficulty A... . In addition, difficulty B...
Can we regard difficulty B as part of the ABC study just because the sentence mentioned "difficulty B" is following the first sentence. Or we have to look at the details of A and B then make our own judgement by common sense.

[RonPurewal]

clearly, "an ADDITIONAL difficulty" is another difficulty of the same stuff.

remember, DO NOT READ THESE PASSAGES WITH YOUR "CLASSROOM BRAIN". just forget that you're taking a test and read these things as though you were reading normal magazines/newspapers/websites, and you'll suddenly find that you're a lot "smarter" literally overnight.
classrooms make people dumb.

[PollyL205]

The passage suggests which of the following about the empirical study of small firms' role?
(A) Anecdotal evidence does not support the theory that small firms' role is significant.
(B) Degrees of market turbulence are the primary indicator of small firms' role.
(C) An examination of new niches created by small firms has provided important data for the analysis of such firms' role.
(D) Case studies have provided reliable evidence to answer major questions concerning small firms' role.
(E) A more precise definition of the term "small firm" is crucial to making a conclusive analysis about small firms' role


I also have the same question about structure of paragraph 3, which got me to eliminate Choice E.

Because there is not an opening sentence to summarize the following 2 points and "empirical knowledge about the relative roles..." seems not a summarizing sentence, I didn't naturally recognize "an additional difficulty" as a subordinate part of "empirical knowledge...".

Regardless of the structure, the meaning also seems irrelevant. I think "definition" has nothing to do with "empirical"?

Can experts help on this one. Thanks!

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

As Ron suggested to the student above, it looks like you're over-complicating things here. I would first encourage you to be clear why all the other answers are not correct, i.e. why answers A through D cannot be inferred from the information given in the passage.

Reflecting on the way that you read the third paragraph, I would encourage you to dialogue with the passage as you read it. When I read this just now, I reached the phrase 'an additional difficulty' and paused to ask "an additional difficulty with what?". I actually went back and reread the previous sentence to be clear that the passage is discussing the difficulty of answering 'major questions concerning the role of small firms'. I linked this back to the issues discussed in the first paragraph, namely, whether small businesses perform well economically and hold an important role in the economy. Then I figured out that it's difficult because (1) there's only anecdotal evidence, and (2) there are no clear criteria to define a small business.