Question 11·Medium·Text Structure and Purpose
The following text is from George P. Marsh’s 1869 essay “Man and Nature”.
We are told that the mountains have always been bleak, that the torrents have always raged, and that nothing we attempt can temper their fury. Yet evidence gathers beneath our very eyes to prove the contrary.
To live only for the harvests we ourselves can reap is to shrink the horizon of human duty to the narrow rim of a single life.
The patient planter who sets a sapling on the slope alters the climate of his grandchildren, and with that simple act refutes the counsel of despair.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the passage as a whole?
For function-of-a-sentence questions, first restate the sentence in your own simple words and decide what type of statement it is (example, rule, definition, contrast, summary, etc.). Then quickly scan the sentences right before and after to see how they connect—does the sentence set up an idea that is then illustrated, or does it sum up what came before? Finally, eliminate answer choices that misdescribe the timing (earlier vs. later), the content (fact vs. value judgment vs. definition), or the role (example vs. principle), and choose the one that best matches both your paraphrase and the sentence’s relationship to the rest of the passage.
Hints
Identify what kind of statement it is
Ask yourself: Is the underlined sentence giving a fact, an example, a definition, or a broad rule about how people should behave?
Look at key words
Pay attention to words like “human duty” and “horizon.” Do these sound more like technical terms, factual details, or something else?
Check how the next sentence relates
Read the sentence about “the patient planter who sets a sapling on the slope.” Does that sentence seem to be an example of the underlined idea, evidence for it, or something different?
Step-by-step Explanation
Restate the underlined sentence in your own words
Focus on the underlined sentence: “To live only for the harvests we ourselves can reap is to shrink the horizon of human duty to the narrow rim of a single life.”
Put it in simpler language: the author is saying that if people care only about benefits they will personally see, they are making their sense of responsibility too small—limited just to their own lifetime.
Notice the type and tone of the statement
Ask: Is this sentence stating a fact, giving a definition, describing an example, or making a value judgment?
The sentence talks about “human duty” and criticizes living only for “harvests we ourselves can reap.” This is not a concrete fact or observation; it is a judgment about what people should care about. That means it is a broad, ethical or moral claim about how humans ought to act, not a specific piece of data or a technical explanation.
Connect the underlined sentence to the rest of the paragraph
Look at what comes right after: “The patient planter who sets a sapling on the slope alters the climate of his grandchildren, and with that simple act refutes the counsel of despair.”
This later sentence describes a specific person planting a tree that will benefit future generations. That example illustrates the idea in the underlined sentence: someone acting with concern beyond their own lifetime. So the underlined sentence sets up a general idea, and the next sentence gives a concrete example that follows from that idea.
Match your description to the answer choices
Now compare each choice to what you’ve figured out:
- The sentence is not an example—it’s an abstract, value-based statement that the following sentence exemplifies.
- It is not summarizing results of earlier evidence, because the specific “evidence” (the planter and the sapling) actually comes after it.
- It is not defining a scientific concept; it uses moral language (“duty,” “horizon of human duty”) rather than technical terms.
The choice that best matches a broad, value-laden guideline that supports the rest of the argument is: “It articulates a moral principle that underlies the author’s argument.”