Purpose of component | Worked example

- [Instructor] So we've got a short passage and just one question here, so I'm gonna read the question first. The author mentions the Inuit way of building with ice primarily in order to blank, and then the choices down here. Alright so we're looking for the Inuit way of building with ice. I'm gonna take a, take a crack at this passage, see if I can say this Swedish place name. The Swedish town of Jukkasjarvi, 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle, has one unique phenomenon, a 60-room building, a hotel, made completely of ice. Neat. This piece of meltable architecture was not built in the time-honored Inuit manner, okay, of cutting blocks of snow packed hard by Arctic winds. To form the hotel, a plywood frame was piled high with snow and sprayed with water. After a settling-in period, the frame was removed leaving an egg-like structure. Alright, so in order to get better control over the test, something that I like to do is reframe the question. Really another way to look at this, you know we can take a question like this when we see, you know, in order to, and change this to a how, or why, or what, is the author doing. And so, so the question is saying, the author mentions the Inuit way of building in order to accomplish something, so I'm gonna rephrase this as why does the author mention the Inuit way of building with ice? That's my question. And then I wanna go back into the passage and see if I can identify an answer. So let's start with the second sentence. This piece of meltable architecture was not built in the time-honored Inuit manner of cutting blocks of snow packed hard by Arctic winds. To form the hotel, a plywood frame was piled high with snow and sprayed with water. So. So rather than blocks of snow being quarried or cut, it's more that the entire structure is made all at once, so it's showing the difference between this snow hotel and the Inuit way of making buildings out of ice and snow. That's, that's what I would say, so the way I would say it, would be to show the difference between the two building techniques. So I want to look for a choice that corresponds to my working model of what the answer is. So let's go through 'em. So why does the author mention the Inuit way of building with ice, do they do it in order to A, criticize the building techniques of the Swedish builders, I didn't see any negativity in the passage, so I don't think we can really make a case for criticism, B, provide a contrast with the building method used for the hotel, that's very similar to what I said, right, to show a difference in building techniques between the Inuit manner and the hotel manner, so I'm gonna flag this, this might be our answer. In order to C, suggest the superiority of the traditional method. Well, since they didn't criticize the building techniques of the Swedish builders, I don't see any evidence in the passage that suggests that the Inuit way is necessarily superior, if that is the author's point of view it doesn't come across in this passage. So I'm gonna say nope. D, to point out that different types of snow and ice require differing building techniques. I mean I guess that's technically true, right, it doesn't say whether or not the snow used in the hotel was hard-packed by the wind. But this seems more weakly connected, I would say this is, this is weaker than choice B. It's not that this is necessarily untrue, it's just that the case for B is stronger. And also the word require is throwing me off. There's nothing in the passage that I identified about like requirements, there's no, there's no stated need to do things in one way or another, so I'm gonna D is not our answer. E, in order to emphasize the historical perspective of the Swedish builders. Choice E would be very tempting if not for the word not here, you know, if the author was claiming, oh, this piece of meltable architecture was built in the time-honored Inuit manner, if the Swedish architect had used a similar method to the Inuit style, then that could emphasize the historical perspective, but since they use a different technique, not this time-honored technique, right, time-honored really gives us that historical perspective, 'cause it, it suggests that this is a method of ice-building construction that's been going on for a long time. But as they're specifically not doing that. I'm going to cross this off. And that means that B is our answer. So when you're presented with a question like this that asks you to evaluate the purpose of some part of a passage, rephrase first the question as a what, why, or how kind of question, what is it doing, or why is the author using it, or how is it being used. Understand its function within the passage, whatever it may be, and then build your own working model of what the answer could be, and then compare your own words answer against the choices.