Q27

[MeenaV936]

I see why B is correct because of the mention of Anglo in the sentence to which the question refers, but why is E wrong? It says the Navajo exhausted styles and new ones would develop (line 45)? I just don't understand how to eliminate E.

[ohthatpatrick]

You should get rid of (E) because line 45 is a different paragraph.

These questions that are asking
"The author mentions ____ in order to"
"The author mentions ____ primarily to"
are asking us to state the localpurpose, which 95% of the time is to illustrate or reinforce the broader claim being made in the previous or following sentence. Otherwise, they reinforce the overall purpose of that paragraph or the internal logic of the sentence.

Just think, "Does the answer illustrate the previous sentence? Does it "set up" the following sentence?"

If either of those applies, that's your answer.

Your attraction to (E) seems like you're getting too unspecific about what the question stem is asking, and getting more into a fuzzier sense of "Which of these answers sound like something we talked about in the passage?" On a local purpose question, you need an answer that aligns with something nearby.

The author didn't bring up Chief White to illustrate a point being made in the previous paragraph. It's part of the discussion of whether the bordered style truly represents a stylistic gap (the topic sentence of that last paragraph). (B) provides some unexpected wording, but it reinforces the idea of "This eventual bordered style wasn't that much of a stylistic leap. They were doing some stuff that was getting looser and closer to the bordered style even before the Anglos came, like this Chief White example"

Hope this helps.