Free SAT Practice Question

Question 1 of 1
ID: SAT-RW-CS-048
Section: SAT Reading & Writing (RW) – Craft and Structure
Topic: Text Structure and Purpose
Difficulty level: Medium

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Most reference books answer a question you already know how to ask. A dictionary assumes you have the word and want its meaning; you look up “benevolent” to learn what it denotes. Peter Mark Roget designed his 1852 thesaurus to run the opposite way. A reader who had the idea but not the word could start from a concept — kindness, say — and follow Roget’s grouped lists outward to “benevolent,” “generous,” and their many neighbors. By arranging words under shared ideas rather than alphabetically, Roget built a book for the writer who knows what to mean but not yet how to say it.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?

ATo trace how Roget’s career as a physician shaped his interest in language. On this reading the passage is really a small biography, tracing how a physician’s career shaped his turn to words, a story the text never sets out to tell.

BTo explain why Roget organized words by concept and how that arrangement serves a writer searching for a word.

CTo argue that a thesaurus is a more useful reference than a dictionary.

DTo compare the reading habits of dictionary users and thesaurus users.

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