Q21

[alexander.atkins]

The concept of approving of purpose is only mentioned in paragraph 3, which hardly seems to qualify it as the main point. What am I missing?

For me it came down to B or D, and I rule dout B because it seemed like more of a conclusion than a main point. D seemed to address the general subject matter/issue at hand.

Help!

[ohthatpatrick]

Let's do a little recap of the Passage Map and any important sentences along the way that might seem like the Main Point.

P1: Background to a problematic misconception
Laypeople, unlike experts, judge risk primarily on voluntary/involuntary, but that distinction is not useful for guiding policy.

(Lines 14-19 seem like Big Idea fodder, because the next 2 paragraphs flesh them out)

P2: 1st reason for the misconception
Voluntary/involuntary is hard to ascertain or quantify (not black and white / matter of degree)

P3: 2nd reason for the misconception
Voluntary/involuntary often based on public's subjective assessment of activity.

P4: Author's attempt to correct the misconception
Policy should instead be based on what experts consider: save as many lives as possible (subject to certain limitations)

(lines 44-49 seem like Big Idea fodder because they both contain "should", indicating the author's opinion on the topic)

When you think about the Main Point, beware assessing it purely in terms of amount of time/words expended. Instead, think about the Main Point in terms of the Purpose of why the author wrote the passage.

The topic was, of course, risk assessment.

What did the author want to say about risk assessment?
1. The public has some stupid notions we shouldn't use
2. We should instead use the standard of saving maximal lives

(Imagine a passage in which an author spends 80% of the passage describing the background to a certain problem and the final 20% discussing a potential remedy to the problem ... the remedy is the REASON the author wanted to write the passage. The description of the problem is just background so that we can get to the remedy. So even though the suggested solution would only occupy a small amount of text, it's still the author's main takeaway.

Imagine a passage in which an author spends 80% of it summarizing a debate between two sides and the final 20%, the last paragraph, is where the author chimes in on the debate. We would still prioritize that 20% over everything else because THAT'S where the author's voice is found.)

(A) This is too narrow. It only deals with the 3rd paragraph, which was clearly a subsidiary point since the 3rd paragraph begins with "Second ..."

(B) This emphasizes the author's voice in the 4th paragraph while also roping in the 2nd and 3rd paragraph by discrediting the layperson's opinion that we should assess voluntary/involuntary.

(C) This screws up the main point. The author DOES want us to be guided by experts, not laypeople, but the author/experts do not consider voluntary/involuntary to be the right basis for policy.

(D) The author wasn't saying that policy decisions are difficult to make because we're using the standard of voluntary/involuntary. Instead, he was saying, "Laypeople THINK that risk decisions should be based on voluntary/involuntary, but they're wrong and using that standard would be problematic. Instead experts use the basis of maximal life-saving." This answer choice assumes that the government currently uses laypeople's method of evaluating risk, but that is an unsupported idea. If anything, the passage gives the opposite impression.

(E) This is too narrow, since it would only deal with laypeople's perception of risk (beyond that, it says something jumbled about the complex motivations that underlie risks, which was not really a topic discussed).

Hope this helps.