ShmoopTube

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Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by nearsighted spiders. Wow, imagine what

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the optometrist bill would be like for a creature with eight eyes.

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The writer is considering replacing the underlined phrase...

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often have poor eyesight and weave using only their sense of touch

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with...

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do not see well

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If the writer made this change, the essay would primarily lose what?

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And here are the potential answers...

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This question requires us to not only take a close look at the underlined portion, but

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to also have a good idea of the information contained in the passage as a whole.

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Thinking caps will be required. Luckily ours just got back from the dry cleaners.

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Answer (A) claims that the writer would lose info about the many strands of thread that

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go into the weaving of spiders' complex webs.

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This is wrong on two levels...

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1) the underlined portion says nothing about the makeup of spider webs

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and...

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2) this info is thoroughly covered earlier in the passage

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(B) tells us that this substitution will eliminate confusion by cutting out a new term that's not explained.

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Unless one considers "poor eyesight" a confusing concept, this is also incorrect.

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The underlined segment doesn't throw anything too mind blowing at us, so we can nix choice (B).

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Choice (D) says the article will no longer contain a comparison between spiders and other insects.

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However, the underlined portion says absolutely nothing about other insects; its focus is

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solely on spiders.

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(Which can be unhealthy if taken too far...)

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In any case, (D) is off the list. The correct answer is (C).

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The main difference between the current phrase, "often have poor eyesight and weave using

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only their sense of touch," and the new one, "do not see well," is that the first phrase

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spells out the reason why the poor eyesight is relevant—spiders can't even see the complicated

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webs they create.

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The rumor is that a spider bit a witch many, many years ago, and ever since, spiders have

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been cursed with the inability to see their own webs.

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