Question 99·Hard·Text Structure and Purpose
At Harbor City’s main library, the reference desk circulates more than books: residents can check out air-quality sensors, handheld audio recorders, and kits for photographing historic storefronts. Staff offer short “story map” sessions so borrowers can log their results, and the library’s website compiles the uploads on a public map. Although such devices are often marketed to specialists, the librarians shelve them alongside novels and cookbooks.
This approach reframes what an archive can be. Instead of waiting for records to arrive, the institution helps produce them, inviting patrons to create the very materials later researchers will consult. The result is not a glossy exhibition but a set of evolving, locally made traces—a record that expands as citizens use it. That shift from passive collecting to active commissioning suggests that maintaining a community’s memory is as much about equipping people to observe the present as it is about preserving the past.
Which choice best describes the structure of the passage?
For structure questions, summarize each paragraph’s function (e.g., “example,” “interpretation,” “redefinition”) and then select the choice that describes that progression most precisely. Beware of tempting options that match paragraph 1 but ignore what paragraph 2 does (often the author’s broader claim).
Hints
Chunk the passage
Label each paragraph’s job in a few words (for example: “example,” “interpretation,” “argument,” “contrast”).
Use the first sentence of paragraph 2
The second paragraph begins with “This approach reframes what an archive can be.” That line tells you the author is moving beyond description into a bigger claim.
Prefer the most complete structure description
If more than one option sounds partly true, pick the one that captures both paragraphs’ roles most completely, not just details from paragraph 1.
Step-by-step Explanation
Identify what the question is asking
The question asks for the structure of the passage: what each paragraph is doing and how the ideas progress from beginning to end.
Summarize the first paragraph’s role
The first paragraph gives a specific example: Harbor City’s library lends devices (sensors, recorders, photo kits) and helps patrons upload results to a public map.
Summarize the second paragraph’s role
The second paragraph interprets that example’s larger significance, explicitly stating that the approach “reframes what an archive can be” and describing a shift from passive collecting to actively helping produce records.
Choose the option that matches example → broader redefinition
The passage moves from a concrete initiative to a general claim about archives, so the best description is: “It presents a specific library initiative and then uses it to argue for a broader redefinition of what an archive can be.”