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Craft and StructureMediumPurpose: an amateur's record

Craft and Structure practice question

Idris Kane spent forty years as a postman in a Welsh valley. Along his route he noted every bird he saw, and by his retirement his notebooks held 30,000 sightings. Ornithologists now use them to trace how the valley's birds have changed over four decades.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

  1. A. To show how an amateur's long-term record became scientifically valuable.Correct
  2. B. To argue that postal workers make good scientists.
  3. C. To describe how the valley's bird populations have declined.
  4. D. To explain how ornithologists count birds.

Answer: A. To show how an amateur's long-term record became scientifically valuable.

Notebooks that scientists now use.

Why the other answers are wrong

B. To argue that postal workers make good scientists.
One postman, no general claim.
C. To describe how the valley's bird populations have declined.
The text says 'changed', not declined.
D. To explain how ornithologists count birds.
No counting method.

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