A student notes question about significance tests whether you can connect a finding to why it matters. Read the goal first and list what it asks for, including words that limit the time or setting. Significance calls for what was found and why it matters; potential asks what it could lead to. Then test the choices against those needs and check their claims against the notes. A true fact still misses the goal if it leaves the reader to supply the link.
Hints
- Hint 1
Start with the goal and work through its three key words: potential, modern, and significance. What does each word add to what the sentence must do?
- Hint 2
Look at what the final note says the finding could lead to. How does that connect to what the team discovered?
Step-by-step
Connect the finding to its significance
Step 1Work out what the answer needs
The goal asks for potential modern significance, so let’s work through those words to see what the answer needs to say. What do they ask us to show about the findings? Significance means why a finding matters, modern points to a use today, and potential means something that could happen rather than something already achieved. The answer needs to link a finding to a possible use in modern concrete.
- Step 2
Cross out what misses the goal
Which sentences don’t say how the findings could be used today? The sentence about nearly 2,000 years shows how long ancient structures lasted, while modern concrete can crack badly explains why researchers might study older materials. The version about clasts that dissolve and recrystallize describes how the concrete seals cracks. Each sentence gives a fact about the topic, but none links the research finding to what engineers might gain today, so each misses the goal.
- Step 3
Check the link against the notes
Now use the notes to test the remaining sentence: does it make the right link? The team found that “lime clasts” allow the concrete to "self-heal", and understanding this process could help engineers design more durable and sustainable modern concrete. Enable self-healing states the discovery, while could inspire connects it to the possible design benefit. That possible benefit explains why the discovery matters for modern concrete, without claiming the improvement has already happened. Choice A.