16Hit1600
Information and IdeasHardDistinguish a survey's chief result from its stated goal

Information and Ideas practice question

A recent expedition into the Gran Desierto set out to relocate Tiquilia palmeri, a low shrub not recorded in the region since 1954. The team found only two individuals. Botanist Renata Colmenares nonetheless considers the survey's chief yield to be something else entirely: the 340 soil-moisture readings her crew took beside every plant it catalogued. Those readings revealed that nearly all of the desert's flowering perennials clustered within a few meters of subsurface gravel channels that leave no trace at the surface. Colmenares notes that earlier surveys, organized around lists of the species present, generated no comparable measurements. Conservation planners now consult her channel maps, rather than her species list, when deciding which parcels of the desert to protect.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

  1. A. The expedition's most valuable outcome was data showing where desert plants grow rather than a record of which species are present.Correct
  2. B. Because the expedition failed to relocate Tiquilia palmeri, its scientific contribution was limited.
  3. C. Colmenares has demonstrated that soil moisture is the only factor governing where desert perennials can survive.
  4. D. Earlier surveys of the Gran Desierto had misidentified many of the species growing there.

Answer: A. The expedition's most valuable outcome was data showing where desert plants grow rather than a record of which species are present.

Every sentence after the second develops one claim: the moisture readings and the gravel-channel pattern they revealed, not the species search, constituted the expedition's real payoff — a point confirmed by planners' use of the channel maps 'rather than her species list.' Choice B contradicts the text (the shrub was found, and Colmenares calls the trip's yield substantial) by treating the original goal as the measure of value. C overstates 'nearly all... clustered' into a claim of sole causation and ignores that the text credits gravel channels, not moisture alone, as the pattern discovered. D misreads the sentence about earlier surveys, which says they produced no moisture measurements, not that they made identification errors.

Why the other answers are wrong

B. Because the expedition failed to relocate Tiquilia palmeri, its scientific contribution was limited.
The expedition did relocate the shrub (two individuals), and Colmenares explicitly calls the survey's chief yield substantial — the moisture data — so the text contradicts the idea of a limited contribution.
C. Colmenares has demonstrated that soil moisture is the only factor governing where desert perennials can survive.
The text says nearly all perennials clustered near gravel channels, which is a pattern, not proof that moisture is the sole factor governing survival.
D. Earlier surveys of the Gran Desierto had misidentified many of the species growing there.
The passage says earlier surveys produced no comparable moisture measurements — not that they got the species identifications wrong.

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