Question 167·Medium·Text Structure and Purpose
The following text is from a reflective essay by a city archivist.
Every noon, the courthouse clock coughs before it strikes. The air seems to hold its breath, then the hour drops like coins into a dish: one, two, three. People look up only if the chime stumbles; otherwise, the sound threads through lunch orders and traffic without comment. When I first took this job, the clock felt like a fussy relic, another object to keep alive. Lately I keep wondering whether the town measures itself by those pulses more than by the documents I file. The clock stutters; we pause; we continue, and the day stitches itself to the next. Perhaps the record we trust is not ink on paper but a habit we share without speaking.
Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?
For overall-structure questions, quickly summarize in your own words what happens in the first half of the passage and what happens in the second half (for example, “first describes X, then reflects on Y” or “first poses a question, then answers it”). Then scan each answer for a matching two-part description and eliminate any choice that mentions elements you don’t actually see in the text (such as conversations, problems, or comparisons that never occur). Focus on the author’s moves—describe, narrate, compare, argue—rather than getting lost in the specific details.
Hints
Focus on the beginning vs. the end
Ask yourself: What is the narrator mainly doing in the first few sentences? Then, what is the narrator mainly doing in the last few sentences?
Look for the type of writing, not just the topic
Decide whether the passage is mostly telling a story, describing a scene, explaining a problem and solution, arguing with someone, or comparing two things.
Check for elements mentioned in the choices
Scan the text for any sign of an administrative problem, a conversation with other people, or two different historical records. If these don’t appear, you can rule out any choices that depend on them.
Notice the shift in the narrator’s thinking
Pay attention to where the narrator moves from concrete details about the clock to more abstract thoughts. How does that shift help describe the passage’s overall structure?
Step-by-step Explanation
Identify what the question is asking
The question asks about the overall structure of the text. That means you need to describe what the author does first and what the author does next (or last) in the passage, in general terms—not to interpret every detail.
Summarize the first part of the passage
Look at the opening sentences:
- "Every noon, the courthouse clock coughs before it strikes. The air seems to hold its breath, then the hour drops like coins into a dish: one, two, three. People look up only if the chime stumbles..."
Here the narrator is describing a repeated event involving the courthouse clock. Notice the strong sensory language (sound and imagery like "coughs" and "coins into a dish"). This is not a problem, argument, or comparison yet—it’s a concrete, familiar scene.
Summarize the second part of the passage
Now read from "When I first took this job" to the end. The narrator moves from description to reflection:
- The clock used to feel like a "fussy relic."
- Now the narrator "keep[s] wondering whether the town measures itself" more by the clock than by documents.
- "Perhaps the record we trust is not ink on paper but a habit we share without speaking."
This is the narrator stepping back and thinking about what the daily clock-chiming might represent for the town as a whole.
Eliminate choices that don’t match what the passage actually does
Now compare that summary to the answer choices:
- There is no specific problem and plan to fix it, so an option that describes an administrative problem plus solution cannot be right.
- There is no conversation with townspeople, so any choice that depends on dialogue or disputing others’ conclusions is wrong.
- There are no two conflicting historical records being compared, so a contrast between records does not fit.
Only one choice matches a move from a detailed description of a repeated event to a broader reflection on its meaning for the community.
Match the accurate description to the correct choice
The passage first depicts a familiar ritual in vivid sensory detail (the courthouse clock striking at noon) and then generalizes about the ritual’s symbolic significance for the community (suggesting the clock’s chimes are a shared, trusted “record” of time for the town). That is exactly what choice A) "The narrator depicts a familiar ritual in vivid sensory detail, then generalizes about the ritual’s symbolic significance for the community." describes, so A is correct.