Which one of the following best expresses the main ideas of the passage?

Lida September 6, 2019

(A) Confusion

Hello, I initially chose (A) but decided to go with (C). I understand why (C) can be eliminated after reading the forum explanation but I need some clarification on (A). I second-guessed (A) because it assumes that the researchers were from oil companies whereas nowhere in the passage it states that the researchers were in fact from the oil companies. Line 1 states what "oil companies should do" but jumps to how researchers are motivated to research pumps for the safety of workers. Do we assume that the researchers are from oil companies due to the objective being worker safety? Is there something that I'm missing, or am I looking into this too deeply? Thanks,

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shunhe January 10, 2020

Hi @Lida,

Thanks for the question! It's good that you noticed the subject - that it's oil companies that are experimenting, whereas the passage focuses mainly on the actions of researchers. However, (A) is still clearly a better answer choice than the other's, and so even if the wording might feel a little weird, it's still the answer choice we go with. If another answer said basically what (A) said but was more precise, we'd go with that one, but we don't have an answer choice like that. We can presume that the researchers are carrying out this research on behalf of the oil companies, since there's not really a reason they'd conduct research for oil specifically otherwise. And we can at presume that the oil companies are trying out these technologies, and that's enough for (A). Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any questions you might still have.