During the 1960's and 1970's, the primary economic development strate

explanation for question one

Question 1

To answer primary purpose questions, start by breaking down the structure of the passage as a whole. Why did the author write each paragraph?

Here's a breakdown of this passage:

• Paragraph 1: The author describes and evaluates an economic development strategy from the 1960s/1970s.
• Paragraph 2: The author describes and evaluates an economic development strategy from the 1980s.
• Paragraph 3: The author describes and evaluates an economic development strategy from current times.

From the above breakdown of each paragraph, why did the author write the passage as a whole? Well, he/she wants to describe and evaluate several different economic development strategies.

That fits beautifully with (E):

(E) is the correct answer to question 1.

I hope that helps!

Can anyone please provide me the official explanation of question number 1.

Posted from my mobile device

A better one than OE is here

https://gmatclub.com/forum/during-the-1 ... l#p3100200

Cheers

can someone describe the meaning of the term evaluate in question number 1 ?

(D) define and explore promotional efforts used by local governments to attract new industry

Isn't the PP of the passage revolving around the local governments efforts to attract new industry?

GMATNinja Please help

Question 1

Good question!

It's true that the passage is about the "efforts of local governments." But what efforts specifically?

Well, the first paragraph discusses a strategy local governments used for "economic development." The next two paragraphs discuss two different strategies local governments employed with the same goal, i.e. achieving economic development.

Notice that the common denominator of all these strategies is their goal of "economic development." True the first strategy seeks to achieve economic development by attracting manufacturing industries, while the second tries to attract high-tech firms. But the third strategy isn't about attracting industries from elsewhere. Rather, it's about encouraging homegrown business.

Let's now take a look at (D):


Notice that the author discusses efforts to attract new industries as examples of a larger project. More specifically, the project of economic development. For that reason, (D) isn't an accurate way to define the primary purpose, and we can eliminate it.

I hope that helps!

Hi GMATNinja

For Q2, why isn't option D correct? It does mention that during the high-technology development era, only a specially trained fraction of the manufacturing force could be employed. Is it wrong of me to assume that that WASN'T the case prior to the 80s?
Thanks in advance!

­The passage does indeed tell us that "high-tech manufacturing firms employ only a specially trained fraction of the manufacturing workforce"­. That means that the people working at those high-tech manufacturing firms have some sort of special training.

But NOT having that specific special training does not necessarily mean that you don't have ANY specialized skills. It just means that you don't have the special training necessary to work at those high-tech manufacturing firms.

For example, let's say that most (or even all) people in the manufacturing workforce have at least one specialized skill. But only 2% of those workers have the SPECIFIC special skills needed to work at the high-tech manufacturing firms. Everyone else might have specialized skills, just not the right ones needed to work at those particular firms.

(D) could be true, but there's no evidence in the passage to support it. (C), on the other hand, is supported by the first paragraph, so it's the best answer.

I hope that helps!­