SAT OwlQuestion bank / Text Structure and Purpose
Historians have often treated the railroad as essential to the growth of the nineteenth-century United States economy. In a 1964 study, economist Robert Fogel tested that assumption by estimating how the economy would have fared if goods had moved by canal, river, and wagon instead. His estimate suggested that the national economy would have been only a few percent smaller in 1890. Fogel did not deny that railroads mattered, but he argued that their importance had been overstated by historians who never asked what the alternatives could have achieved.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?
It presents the finding that leads Fogel to challenge the historians' assumption.
It describes the method Fogel used to estimate how large the economy would have been without railroads.
It concedes that the historians' view of railroads is largely correct.
It explains why railroads were built more quickly than canals.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A
The sentence before the underlined one describes Fogel's method, and the underlined sentence gives his result: without railroads the economy would have been only a few percent smaller. That result is what lets him argue in the last sentence that railroads' importance was overstated, choice A.
Choice B describes the sentence before the underlined one, which explains how Fogel built his estimate.
Why the other choices are wrong
- B. The method, imagining goods moving by canal, river, and wagon, is in the previous sentence. The underlined sentence gives the result.
- C. An economy only a few percent smaller suggests railroads were less essential than historians claimed, which challenges their view.
- D. The text never compares how quickly railroads and canals were built.
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