The view has prevailed for the better part of the twentieth century th

It’s important to break down the structure of every RC passage and understand each paragraph within it. However, the primary purpose of the passage is not the sum of its paragraphs. There’s a difference between adding up the pieces and understanding how each piece fits into a greater story that the author has written. We want to do the latter. To see what I mean, let’s break down this passage in terms of what the author is doing:

• In P1, The author describes the prevailing view of small firms in the 20th century, then explains when and how this view has been challenged.
• In P2, The author describes an alternative view of small firms that has emerged in economics literature.
• In P3, The author adds a caveat to accepting the alternative view, because of a lack of adequate empirical definitions and evidence about the relative roles of large and small firms.

The author wrote this passage in order to present and consider an emerging alternative to the prevailing wisdom about the importance of small firms in Western economies. The passage is structured to introduce the alternative view, explain how it’s challenged the prevailing view, describe what the alternative view argues, and remind us to be careful about rushing to embrace this argument. The structure of the passage isn’t strongly pushing us one direction or the other; rather, it is set up to examine all sides of the issue. We never see strong language endorsing the alternative view or rejecting it. Overall, the passage is a dispassionate description.

Now that we’ve got a clear-eyed view of the structure and purpose, let’s start eliminating choices:


The author is not here to dismiss the alternative view. The difficulties raised in P3 help us think critically about this view and the ongoing conversation about small vs. large firms. Thinking critically about a view is not the same as rejecting or dismissing it. If the author’s concern were dismissal, then P3 would use stronger, more explicit language to declare that the lack of empirical evidence makes the challenging view illegitimate. We’d also see different language in P1 and P2 to build up to this kind of conclusion. Because we don’t see the author using argumentative structure or language to construct the passage, we’ll eliminate (A) and move on.


This choice runs in the opposite direction of (A), and is wrong for the same reason: The author is not here to take sides. Because the author isn’t primarily concerned with suggesting the alternative view as a solution, let’s eliminate (B).


This choice tries to hit the middle ground, but does the author ever resolve the conflict? No. The furthest that the author goes is to point out that both the prevailing view and the challenging view have flaws with regards to the evidence that they use. This is a great starting point for someone else to resolve the conflict, but because this never happens in the passage itself, let’s eliminate (C).


This choice is precisely tailored to the passage’s structure and purpose. At the end of the day, this passage takes the form of a discussion, presentation, or consideration — not an endorsement, defense, rejection, or attack. Let’s keep (D) and finish our process of elimination.


Just as we eliminated (A) and (B), we’ll eliminate (E) because the author is not here to defend anything.

(D) is the best answer choice.

I hope this helps!