Q1

[pinkdatura]

I diagram this passage as

New Urbanism Suburban Sprawl
1 ss-->civil erode individual legitimate desire
2 ss-->econ de facto
3 concern with long time
social cost
(Author)

1
B advocate specific reform of zoning law=mix housing NU suggest?
Is this answer wrong due to partial(detail) or bringing up new info as "reform"?

E result of short sighted policy? advocate changes of policy?
Is this answer wrong because neither reason of sprawl mentioned or advocate change of policy?

[aileenann]

Hi there,

I think your diagram looks good - nice and succinct.

As far as your query about (B), I think you are right about why (B) is wrong - in particular, it's bringing in new, overly specific information in a "main point" question where we'd like to keep things nice and general.

As far as (E), I don't think I understand your question. Could you please clarify?

Thanks!

[wgutx08]

I had such a hard time with this passage.

For Q1, I could not decide between B and D and eventually picked B. The text said that Duany et al advocated developments modeled after "early-20th century" neighborhoods (L37-38). I could not find anything that says "modeled on small urban neighborhoods" (D) so I thought D is a trap. L41-42 did say "small neighborhood schools", but I thought this means small schools in the neighborhood instead of schools of small neighborhood, since the 1st version will make more sense in the sentence?

Can you please tell me why the heck is D correct? Many thanks!!

[maryadkins]

Yes, this is a bit of a tricky one.

As Aileen mentioned before, (B) is too specific to be a main point answer. The New Urbanists, we're told, have bigger concerns about examining values (line 51) as opposed to believing that merely reforming zoning laws will be "a solution to this problem." If it's a problem of values, as we're told, then zoning laws alone aren't going to be a solution.

The "smallness" in answer choice (D) is supported by the idea scattered throughout the passage that the suburban sprawl is wide and, well, sprawling i.e. large and disperse: line 26 ("widely"), line 12 ("in separate areas") and all the discussion of having to drive everywhere supports the idea that the larger and more widespread, the more isolating.

As for the other answer choices:

(A) is a contradiction. The author doesn't land on the side opposing the New Urbanists.

(C) is out of scope. The passage is not about gratification.

(E) is like (B), too narrow; the New Urbanists are not focused solely on traffic policies as a way to address suburban sprawl.

Hope this helps!