16Hit1600
Craft and StructureEasy–MediumCross-text connections: identifying a difference in emphasis

Craft and Structure practice question

Text 1 Each spring, tens of thousands of volunteers across North America record the date they see the first bloom on a lilac, the first leaf on a maple, the first monarch butterfly. Their reports flow into a shared online database that now holds more than thirty million observations—far more than any team of salaried botanists could ever compile. Ordinary people with notebooks have built a scientific resource of remarkable scale. Text 2 Volunteer networks do generate observations in astonishing quantities. Quantity, however, is not the same as coverage. Volunteers naturally record what is near them, which means reports cluster along roads and around cities while enormous stretches of forest, desert, and farmland go unwatched. Unless project organizers actively recruit observers in the empty spots on the map, the resulting datasets will show us where people live more faithfully than they show us where plants bloom.

Which choice best describes a difference in how the two texts discuss volunteer-collected observations?

  1. A. Text 1 highlights the sheer volume of data volunteers produce, while Text 2 raises a concern about where that data comes from.Correct
  2. B. Text 1 claims volunteers are more accurate than professional scientists, while Text 2 claims they are less accurate.
  3. C. Text 1 examines one national project in detail, while Text 2 compares several competing projects.
  4. D. Text 1 proposes changes to how volunteers are trained, while Text 2 argues that no changes are needed.

Answer: A. Text 1 highlights the sheer volume of data volunteers produce, while Text 2 raises a concern about where that data comes from.

Text 1 stresses scale ("more than thirty million observations," more than professionals could compile), whereas Text 2 grants that volume and then objects that the observations cluster near roads and cities, leaving other regions unrecorded—an issue of geographic coverage. (B) swaps volume for accuracy: Text 1 never says volunteers are more accurate than professionals, and Text 2 questions where reports come from, not whether individual reports are correct. (C) misreads scope: neither text analyzes a named project in detail, and Text 2 discusses volunteer networks in general rather than comparing rival projects. (D) reverses the texts: it is Text 2, not Text 1, that suggests a change (recruiting observers in underreported areas), and Text 2 clearly does not say the current approach needs no adjustment.

Why the other answers are wrong

B. Text 1 claims volunteers are more accurate than professional scientists, while Text 2 claims they are less accurate.
You swapped volume for accuracy: Text 1 says volunteers compile more observations than professionals could, not more accurate ones, and Text 2 questions where reports come from, not whether individual reports are correct.
C. Text 1 examines one national project in detail, while Text 2 compares several competing projects.
Neither text analyzes a single named project in detail, and Text 2 discusses volunteer networks in general rather than comparing rival projects.
D. Text 1 proposes changes to how volunteers are trained, while Text 2 argues that no changes are needed.
This reverses the texts: it's Text 2 that suggests a change (recruiting observers in the empty spots), and Text 1 proposes nothing about training.

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