HSPT Language Skills : Relevance and Scope
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Example Questions
Example Question #2 : Selecting Concluding Sentences
[1] Before the printing press and moveable type were in use, copyists had to spend a great deal of time hand-printing books. [2] This made books time-consuming to produce, relatively rare, and very expensive. [3] Books printed using a printing press relied not on human writers to spell out their messages, but on arrangements of metal or wooden blocks with letters on them. [4] Printing a book was much faster than hand-copying it.
Which of the following sentences would best conclude the paragraph?
Lead type has a maximum letter size that it can print, but wooden type isn't subject to the same limit.
"Illuminated" manuscripts are those in which the copyist included visual art in the margins or in the form of heavily-embellished first letters of texts or sections.
Moveable type and the printing press had a huge effect on Europe and helped pave the way for the Scientific Revolution, which was in full swing in the seventeenth century.
Due to the way it decreased the time and effort involved in publishing and distributing a book, the printing press and moveable type together helped create a publishing boom in which books became more accessible than ever before in Europe.
Due to the way it decreased the time and effort involved in publishing and distributing a book, the printing press and moveable type together helped create a publishing boom in which books became more accessible than ever before in Europe.
The sentence about lead type vs. wooden type and and the sentence about illuminated manuscripts are related to the history of book publishing, but not to the contents of the paragraph specifically. If either were used as the concluding sentence for this paragraph, it would make for a confusing, irrelevant conclusion.
Both of the remaining answer choices shown below relate to the history of publishing and specifically to the invention of the printing press and moveable type, so we need to focus on how they differ.
"Moveable type and the printing press had a huge effect on Europe and helped pave the way for the Scientific Revolution, which was in full swing in the seventeenth century."
"Due to the way it decreased the time and effort involved in publishing and distributing a book, the printing press and moveable type together helped create a publishing boom in which books became more accessible than ever before in Europe."
The answer choice here listed first summarizes the effect that the invention of the printing press and moveable type had on Europe before considering how this event helped cause the Scientific Revolution. The Scientific Revolution isn't mentioned anywhere in the paragraph provided, so it is off-topic in this particular paragraph. This sentence would thus not make the best conclusion.
The best answer is the answer choice here listed second. This sentence summarizes the effect that the printing press and moveable type had on the European publishing industry at the time, which is much more closely related to the content of the provided paragraph.
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