Explanation for Question 11 From the Reading Section on the Official Sat Practice Test 10
So question 11 asks what the main purpose of the passage is. 2 So if we look back in the passage, 3 we can identify the main claim by looking for something similar to the 4 thesis. And we find that right here, 5 starting in line 14. 6 So that's going to be somewhat of our thesis. 7 It says, needless to say, those ideas are not popular, 8 but they're necessary because you can't make people drive less in the long run 9 by taking steps that make driving more pleasant, 10 economical, and productive. So if we go back and look at the answer choices, 11 we can start with answer choice. It says, provide support for the claim that 12 efforts to reduce traffic actually increased traffic. 13 So this answer choice is going to provide a supporting detail to our thesis, 14 but it's not going to provide the main purpose of the passage. 15 So a would be incorrect for that reason. 16 And we can see that as a supporting detail here, 17 starting in line five, where it says to have environmental value, 18 new transit has to replace and eliminate driving on a scale sufficient to cut 19 energy consumption overall. So that's where that appears in our passage in relation 20 to our main idea. So then if we look at answer choice B, 21 it says dispute the widely held belief that building and improving mass transit systems 22 is good for the environment. Again, 23 this is going to be a supporting detail to the main claim that we 24 talked about earlier. And we can find that here in line 25 57, where it ...