Which one of the following, if true, would most help to strengthen the author's main claim in the last sentence of th...

jingjingxiao11111@gmail.com on February 11, 2022

Hi I am not an instructor but I will try to help.

The last claim in the passage states that “80 percent of the area's cropland is now irrigated and . that the region is currently the top producer of many . specialty crops cannot be fully understood by . historiographers without attention to the input of . Chinese settlers as reconstructed from their (60) interactions with that landscape.”

Earlier in the passage, we had a relevant line reference about swamps and the differing views that European and Chinese settlers had in regards to swamps. See below the line reference:

“For example, . where settlers of European descent looked at willows (40) and saw only useless, untillable swamp, Chinese . settlers saw fresh water, fertile soil, and the potential . for bringing water to more arid areas via irrigation.”

The above line reference states that Chinese settlers saw the potential to turn “useless, untillable swamp” into “fresh water, fertile soil, and the potential for bringing water to more arid areas via irrigation.” This is directly related to answer choice B. B) states that “Nineteenth–century surveying records indicate that the lands now cultivated by specialty crop businesses owned by descendants of Chinese settlers were formerly swamp lands.” If this were true, it helps the above argument that Chinese settlers saw more potential in swamps, as their descendants still owned special crop business developed from former swamps.

I hope that I explained it correctly. Please feel free to correct me. Thank you.

Ravi on February 13, 2022

Looking at the last sentence of the passage, the author says that without reconstructing the history of the Pacific Coast of America through the Chinese settlers' actions no swamp lands, historíographers could not have totally understood the impact that those tellers had in getting the swamp lands ready to be used for the cultivation of specialty crops in the present day.

The author is basically saying that the Chinese settlers' conversion of the swamp lands into arable land was a crucial step in helping to pave the way for the agriculture business in the Pacific Coast in present day. However, if it were actually true that all of the specialty crop businesses today are really located on the desirable land that the European settlers were tilling during the nineteenth century, then the author's belief would not be true.

In looking at B, it helps us to show a linkage between the former swamp land and what is presently used as land for specialty crop cultivation. In building the bridge between the swamp land from the past and present day specialty crop cultivation land, B helps show that the swamp lands that the Chinese settlers took over during the nineteenth century are now being used as specialty crop businesses. This suggests that these settlers were necessary in the development of agriculture on the Pacific Coast, so B is the correct choice.