A detail question about someone's main reason tests whether you can tell why they make a decision. Read the sentence naming the decision and the nearby sentences that explain it. If the text also gives benefits, ask which fact explains the decision most directly, so you find the reason driving the decision. Then put that reason in a few words, staying with what the passage says. A believable reason isn't enough if the text never gives it.
Hints
- Hint 1
Read Shephard's request to delay departure and the next two sentences. Find why she objects to leaving now.
- Hint 2
The final sentence describes what waiting will change. Which change answers her earlier objection to leaving?
Step-by-step
Follow the request to its reason
Step 1Find the obstacle after the request
Peters has the boat and maps ready, yet Shephard asks him to delay our departure by a fortnight, meaning two weeks. Why wait when those preparations are done? Since the question asks for her main reason, we follow the request to the next sentence: the rising river is turning the low meadow paths into shallow lakes, and the ferrymen won't carry passengers until the current slows. The route to the rookery is the problem.
- Step 2
Separate the main reason from an added benefit
What makes waiting necessary, rather than only more rewarding? Shephard says we would spend our days bailing water instead of observing birds, so they'd be busy emptying water from the boat rather than studying birds. The June plan offers two benefits: the flood will subside, and the herons will have settled in numbers great enough to reward our patience. The flood going down solves the problem described earlier, while greater numbers of herons make a later visit more rewarding. The flood explains the delay; the herons add a benefit.
- Step 3
Check what each choice claims
Which choice stays within what the letter says? Nothing mentions additional assistants or necessary permits, and have not yet returned says the birds are absent now, which greater numbers in June don't prove. Dangerous river conditions describes the present travel risk because Shephard warns that reaching the rookery in such conditions would be foolhardy. Choice C.