Craft and StructureVery hardStructure of an explanatory text
Craft and Structure practice question
In the 1840s, doctors at a Vienna hospital noticed that women who gave birth in the ward staffed by physicians died of fever far more often than those in the ward staffed by midwives. The prevailing explanation blamed 'bad air' in the physicians' ward. When Ignaz Semmelweis had that ward thoroughly aired, however, the death rate did not change. He then observed that physicians came to the ward straight from performing autopsies, and he required them to wash their hands in a chlorine solution beforehand. Deaths fell by roughly ninety percent.
Which choice best describes the structure of the text?
- A. It presents an observation, an explanation that was tested and found wanting, and the explanation that replaced it.Correct
- B. It describes a medical procedure and then lists its advantages and disadvantages.
- C. It states a conclusion and then presents several unrelated pieces of evidence for it.
- D. It contrasts the practices of physicians and midwives without reaching any conclusion.
Answer: A. It presents an observation, an explanation that was tested and found wanting, and the explanation that replaced it.
The text moves through a puzzle (higher deaths in one ward), a first explanation ('bad air') that a test disproved (airing changed nothing), and a second explanation (contamination from autopsies) that a test confirmed (deaths fell). That is observation, rejected explanation, accepted explanation.
Why the other answers are wrong
- B. It describes a medical procedure and then lists its advantages and disadvantages.
- Hand-washing is mentioned, but the text doesn't weigh its pros and cons; it recounts how one explanation gave way to another.
- C. It states a conclusion and then presents several unrelated pieces of evidence for it.
- The text doesn't begin with a conclusion — it begins with an unexplained observation and works toward the answer.
- D. It contrasts the practices of physicians and midwives without reaching any conclusion.
- The text does reach a conclusion: contamination from autopsies caused the deaths, and hand-washing prevented them.
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