Central ideas and details

Legal historian Amina Belkacem examined 600 petitions filed by women in nineteenth-century Algerian courts. Formal law gave these petitioners few grounds to challenge a male relative's control of family property. Belkacem found that the successful petitions almost never argued about rights. Instead they documented the relative's failure to maintain the household, a duty the same law attached to his authority. The petitioners won by holding the system to its own terms.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

• A) Women petitioners lost cases by making claims about rights instead of invoking male relatives' household maintenance obligations.
• B) Women petitioners succeeded by invoking the obligations built into male authority rather than claiming rights. ✓
• C) Belkacem discovered that Algerian law granted women more rights than male relatives possessed in practice.
• D) The majority of petitions filed by women in nineteenth-century Algerian courts failed to succeed in their legal arguments.

Why: Belkacem's finding is that the successful petitions "almost never argued about rights" and instead documented the male relative's failure at a duty the same law attached to his authority, so the petitioners "won by holding the system to its own terms." "Belkacem discovered that Algerian law granted women more rights than male relatives possessed in practice." reverses the legal setup, since the passage says formal law gave these petitioners "few grounds" to challenge a relative's control. "Women petitioners lost cases by making claims about rights instead of invoking male relatives' household maintenance obligations." converts a statement about what won into a claim about what lost; the passage reports the content of the successful petitions and never says that rights arguments were the reason other petitions failed. "The majority of petitions filed by women in nineteenth-century Algerian courts failed to succeed in their legal arguments." puts a proportion on the outcomes that the text does not give, since 600 petitions are examined but no success rate is reported.

Ozone in the city's air fell sharply after diesel limits took effect, but only on weekdays. Weekend ozone rose. Atmospheric chemist Salome Tadesse's monitors show why the two can move apart: diesel exhaust both makes ozone and destroys it, and which effect dominates depends on how much of it there is. Above a threshold the exhaust scavenges ozone faster than it generates it. Weekday traffic had been sitting above that threshold; weekend traffic never did. Cutting diesel lowered a ceiling on weekdays and removed a floor on weekends, from one change in the fuel rule.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

• A) Weekend traffic in the city has always been lighter than weekday traffic is.
• B) Diesel exhaust destroys ozone faster than it produces it above a threshold level.
• C) The city's diesel limits failed to improve air quality across the region as a whole.
• D) One rule change cut weekday ozone and raised weekend ozone, across a threshold. ✓

Why: The text's claim is spread across its parts: ozone fell on weekdays and rose on weekends, diesel both makes and destroys ozone, and weekday traffic alone sat above the threshold. Choice B is that middle mechanism alone. Choice C supplies a net judgment the text never offers. Diesel exhaust destroys ozone faster than it produces it above a threshold level. is the chemistry the text supplies in order to explain a split result, not the result itself. Weekend traffic in the city has always been lighter than weekday traffic is. is a background fact the text implies rather than the point it is making. The city's diesel limits failed to improve air quality across the region as a whole. is a verdict the text does not reach; it reports opposite effects, not a net failure.

Philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah has argued against what he calls "cultural purity" — the idea that cultures are fixed, bounded entities that must be preserved in their original form. Instead, Appiah contends that all cultures have always borrowed from one another, and that this exchange is a source of vitality rather than contamination. He points to examples ranging from the adoption of Arabic numerals in Europe to the global spread of jazz, arguing that cultural interaction typically enriches rather than diminishes the participating cultures.

The passage suggests that the concept of cultural purity is problematic primarily because it

• A) assumes that cultures can remain unchanged when in fact all cultural products eventually spread across different regions
• B) misrepresents the historical relationship between cultures by ignoring the reality that cultural borrowing has always occurred ✓
• C) prevents cultures from adopting beneficial practices like Arabic numerals and jazz that have proven their value globally
• D) treats cultural exchange as contamination rather than as a process that typically strengthens the cultures involved

Why: Appiah's ground for rejecting cultural purity is historical, that 'all cultures have always borrowed from one another,' with Arabic numerals in Europe and the global spread of jazz as cases, so a view of cultures as fixed and bounded gets the past wrong: misrepresents the historical relationship between cultures by ignoring the reality that cultural borrowing has always occurred. The text makes no forecast that cultural products will spread, only a claim about borrowing that has already happened: assumes that cultures can remain unchanged when in fact all cultural products eventually spread across different regions. The numerals and jazz appear as evidence that borrowing occurs and enriches, not as practices the idea of purity blocked: prevents cultures from adopting beneficial practices like Arabic numerals and jazz that have proven their value globally. And this restates the value side of Appiah's case, exchange as vitality rather than contamination, which is his answer to the idea rather than the historical error in it: treats cultural exchange as contamination rather than as a process that typically strengthens the cultures involved.