Question 58·Easy·Text Structure and Purpose
The following text is from a 1906 letter by naturalist Clara M. Reyes.
Many have asked why I persist in recording even the most ordinary moths that flutter against my lamp each night. I answer that the commonplace, when examined with patient eyes, often yields truths the spectacular keeps hidden. Were we to reserve our notebooks only for rare wonders, we would consign the greater part of nature to silence.
Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?
For main-purpose questions, first identify what the author is doing overall: explaining, arguing, describing, or narrating. Use the first and last sentences to see what question the author is answering or what point they’re making, then quickly test each answer choice by asking, “Does this match the author’s overall action, or does it add extra claims or focus on the wrong thing?” Eliminate choices that are too specific, introduce new ideas (like breakthroughs or complaints not in the text), or describe only part of the passage, and select the one that captures the central purpose of the whole excerpt.
Hints
Use the opening sentence as a clue
Focus on the first line: the author mentions that many have asked her something. What kind of writing move is she making when she responds to people’s questions?
Look for signal words that show purpose
Notice the phrase "I answer that". Ask yourself: is she mainly telling a story, describing details, complaining, or doing something else?
Check what she contrasts and what she values
She contrasts the "commonplace" with the "spectacular" and talks about what would happen if people wrote about only rare wonders. What does this show she is defending or justifying?
Test each option against the whole passage
For each answer choice, ask: does the entire passage support this, or is it adding an idea (like breakthroughs, complaining, or detailed description) that isn’t really there?
Step-by-step Explanation
Identify the question being answered in the passage
Look closely at the first sentence: "Many have asked why I persist in recording even the most ordinary moths that flutter against my lamp each night."
This shows that the writer is responding to a question others have: they want to know why she keeps recording ordinary moths. That sets up the overall purpose of the passage.
See how the author responds to that question
The next sentence begins, "I answer that..." which signals she is now giving her explanation.
She says the commonplace, when examined carefully, "often yields truths the spectacular keeps hidden" and that if scientists focused only on rare wonders, "the greater part of nature" would be ignored.
So the main function of the passage is to justify or explain her practice of studying ordinary moths, not to tell a story or describe them in detail.
Eliminate choices that don’t match the author’s purpose
Now compare each choice to what the passage actually does:
- One choice claims she is arguing that ordinary species lead to scientific breakthroughs, which is a stronger and more specific claim than what she says (she only says they "often yield truths").
- Another says she laments society’s disregard for rare natural wonders, but she is actually worried about ordinary nature being ignored, not rare wonders.
- Another suggests she is describing the nightly habits of moths, but she doesn’t give any behavioral details—she only mentions them briefly as context.
Only one choice matches the idea that she is answering why she keeps recording ordinary moths.
Match the remaining choice to the passage’s purpose
The best answer is the one that says the passage’s main purpose is to explain why the author focuses her research on ordinary subjects, because the entire text is her response to people asking why she studies such common moths and her reasoning for doing so.