Question 132·Hard·Text Structure and Purpose
Many observers hail the city's new riverfront park as a triumph of community design, pointing to packed weekend concerts and a surge of café openings. Yet these bellwethers, urban sociologist Lina Ortega argues, obscure how the project displaced long-standing markets and severed bus routes that once knit the district together.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?
For function-of-sentence questions, paraphrase the target sentence, then immediately paraphrase what follows and look for structural cues (especially contrast words like “yet,” “however,” or “but”). Decide whether the sentence is introducing context, conceding a common view, providing evidence, or shifting the argument, and pick the choice that best captures that role in the overall mini-argument (not just what the sentence says in isolation).
Hints
Notice whose perspective the first sentence reports
Does the underlined sentence present the author’s own conclusion, or does it report what other people think? Focus on the subject of the sentence (who is doing the “hailing”).
Use the transition to predict the structure
The next sentence begins with "Yet." That word typically signals a shift away from what came before. What kind of shift is it here?
Track the tone shift
Is the first sentence positive or negative about the park? Is the second sentence positive or negative? What does that change suggest about why the author included the first sentence?
Watch for answers that misidentify the speaker or the author’s stance
Some choices may incorrectly treat the first sentence as Ortega’s view or as the author’s final conclusion. Check whether the text actually assigns that viewpoint to Ortega or endorses it.
Step-by-step Explanation
Identify what the question is asking
The question asks about the function of the underlined sentence "in the text as a whole."
This means you must:
- Understand what the underlined sentence is doing, and
- Determine how it connects to the next sentence (and the author’s overall point).
Paraphrase the underlined sentence
Underlined sentence:
"Many observers hail the city's new riverfront park as a triumph of community design, pointing to packed weekend concerts and a surge of café openings."
Paraphrase:
- Many people praise the park as a community-design success.
- They point to busy concerts and new cafés as evidence.
Key observation: the sentence reports what others think ("many observers"), and its tone is positive.
Paraphrase the following sentence and note the transition
Next sentence:
"Yet these bellwethers, urban sociologist Lina Ortega argues, obscure how the project displaced long-standing markets and severed bus routes that once knit the district together."
Paraphrase:
- "Yet" signals contrast.
- Ortega argues the positive “signs” of success hide real harms (displacement and lost transit connections).
So the second sentence is critical and challenges the upbeat view in the first sentence.
Determine the relationship between the two sentences
The structure is:
- Present a common, favorable view of the park.
- Pivot (with “Yet”) to an expert’s critique that complicates that view.
So the first sentence functions as a setup/concession that the passage then questions.
Match that relationship to the answer choices
Compare each option to the passage’s structure:
-
It summarizes Lina Ortega’s main argument about the riverfront park, which the next sentence elaborates.
This is incorrect because the underlined sentence describes what “many observers” think; Ortega’s argument begins in the next sentence. -
It provides concrete examples of the park’s popularity to explain why some residents consider the project successful.
This captures a detail-level role (giving examples), but it misses the key text-wide function: the sentence is included to set up the contrast and critique that follows. -
It describes benefits of the riverfront park in order to argue that the redevelopment improved the district overall.
This incorrectly treats the first sentence as the author’s own claim of improvement, when the passage immediately pivots to challenge that upbeat narrative. -
It acknowledges a commonly held view of the park’s success in order to set up the critique that follows.
This matches the concession-then-contrast structure signaled by “Yet.”
Correct answer: It acknowledges a commonly held view of the park’s success in order to set up the critique that follows.