The following text is adapted from Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto’s 1925 memoir A Daughter of the Samurai. As a young woman, Sugimoto moved from feudal Japan to the United States. The standards of my own and my adopted country differed so widely in some ways, and my love for both lands was so sincere, that sometimes I had an odd feeling of standing upon a cloud in space, and gazing with measuring eyes upon two separate worlds. At first I was continually trying to explain, by Japanese standards, all the queer things that came every day before my surprised eyes; for no one seemed to know the origin or significance of even the most familiar customs, nor why they existed and were followed.

[red]*Which choice best states the main purpose of the text? *

The details and facts help to draw the main idea of the passage.

Can you summarize what you’ve understood in the above steps?

Choice A is incorrect. This isn’t the main purpose of the text. The text never mentions agricultural yields.

It discusses research intended to settle a debate about how agricultural yields can be increased without negative effects on water quality.

Choice B is ncorrect. This isn’t the main purpose of the text. The text never mentions other kinds of agricultural environments.

It explains the differences between stream-protection strategies used in oil palm plantations and stream-protection strategies used in other kinds of agricultural environments.

Choice C is incorrect. This isn’t the main purpose of the text. The text never mentions any previously held view about how fish in these streams try to avoid predators.

It describes findings that challenge a previously held view about how fish that inhabit streams in agricultural environments attempt to avoid predators.

Choice D is the correct answer. The author first describes an unresolved question: what effect do bank forests have on stream biodiversity? Then the author presents a study that answers the question: bank forests increase stream biodiversity.

It presents a study that addresses an unresolved question about the presence of forests along streams in agricultural environments.

Correct sentence

The author first describes an unresolved question: what effect do bank forests have on stream biodiversity? Then the author presents a study that answers the question: bank forests increase stream biodiversity.

Choice

D

Can you summarize what you’ve understood in the above steps?