What is the main purpose of the text?

Question

It is tempting to credit the city's falling crime rate to its new surveillance cameras. Yet crime had already begun dropping two years before the cameras were installed, and neighboring cities without cameras saw similar declines.

Accepted Answer

B. To cast doubt on a proposed explanation for a trend. The text raises a tempting explanation ('credit … to its new cameras') and then offers two facts that undercut it, so its purpose is to cast doubt on that explanation. C overstates the point (nothing says cameras increase crime), and A reverses the text's skeptical stance.

Answer

A. To recommend installing more surveillance cameras — The text undercuts the cameras' credit rather than endorsing them, so it points away from installing more, not toward it.

Answer

C. To prove that surveillance cameras increase crime — The evidence shows crime fell without the cameras' help, which is not the same as saying cameras made crime worse — the text questions the explanation rather than reversing it.

Answer

D. To describe how surveillance cameras are installed — The text says nothing about the installation process; it only notes when the cameras were installed in order to challenge the claim that they caused the drop.

Craft and Structure practice question

Answer: B. To cast doubt on a proposed explanation for a trend

Why the other answers are wrong

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