A question about how one author would reply to another tests whether you can connect their claims and reasons. Start with the question to find who answers whom, since either author may be replying. Put each text’s claim and reason in a few words, then name how the author responds. Reject means disagree, qualify means agree only in part or in certain cases, and extend means carry the claim further. A reply needs the responding author’s own reason, not one that only sounds reasonable.
Hints
- Hint 1
Dr. Grant is the one replying, so find her main claim in Text 1.
- Hint 2
In Text 2, look for why the editorial worries about citizen science. What has gone wrong in the examples it gives?
- Hint 3
Return to outweighs in Grant’s final sentence. Ask how that judgment would answer the editorial’s concern about errors.
Step-by-step
Use the replying author’s reason
Step 1Start from Grant’s point of view
The question names Dr. Grant as the person replying, so Text 1 supplies her reasons. What does she value? She calls the reports from non-professionals an irreplaceable richness of data and supports that claim with hobbyists’ bird counts gathered over decades.
- Step 2
Pin down the editorial’s concern
What problem does the editorial raise? Wrong plant identifications have led to wrong range maps, and it warns that projects risk doing more harm than good by propagating misinformation unless experts check the reports. Its concern is the harm that inaccurate reports can cause, which Grant’s reply must address.
- Step 3
Find how Grant weighs the errors
Grant already accepts that there can be the occasional inaccuracy in any individual report. Why doesn’t that undo her argument? She says the projects’ reach across places and years outweighs those errors, so errors don’t cancel the value of the whole collection. She disagrees with the editorial’s negative judgment, but she doesn’t deny that volunteers make mistakes.
- Step 4
Match the reply to her reason
Which reply uses that reason to answer the concern about misinformation? The choice about breadth of data ties its defense to Grant’s claim that scope outweighs the occasional inaccuracy in any individual report. Its phrase corrects for individual mistakes points to balancing out the effect of single errors through the larger collection, not removing every wrong report. Choice D.