Question

applied critical analysis
progress:
the movement of the progress bar may be uneven because questions can be worth more or less (including zero) depending on your answer.
read paragraphs 10, 11, and 12 from the passage.
what is the author’s main idea in this excerpt?
○ focusing on marriage to alleviate poverty is an indirect way to comment on the morality of poor parents.
○ government solutions to poverty, such as creating jobs and improving education, are not as effective as promoting marriage.
○ the collapse of marriage is the primary cause of child poverty in the united states.
○ focusing on the collapse of marriage takes attention away from a more important focus of providing quality education to children.
reading passage
the link between education and poverty

1. imagine a classroom of 20 children, ready for learning. in this class, 12 of them - over half - are considered low - income or poor. of the 72 million children in the united states, more than 45 million of them are growing up in low - income or poor families. that is 64 percent of children in the richest country in the world living just above or under the poverty line (jiang 1). there are many causes to poverty, but none as inextricably linked as education. in fact, children whose parents have less than a high school degree have a significantly increased chance of growing up in poverty (jiang 5). poverty and lack of education are connected in a continuing, ever - worsening cycle. in fact, poverty is both a cause and an effect of lack of education.
2. one of the ways poverty negatively impacts educational outcomes is that poor neighborhoods are not able to fund their schools adequately. public schools are funded with property taxes from the surrounding areas, meaning that poorer neighborhoods bring in less tax revenue, resulting in less funding for their schools. sean slade, senior director of global outreach at the association for supervision and curriculum development believes that how we fund our school systems is fundamentally flawed. he writes, “we have established systems that perpetuate and...

question id: 1067685

Explanation:

To determine the author's main idea, we analyze each option:

• Option 1: The passage focuses on education and poverty, not moral commentary on poor parents via marriage. Eliminate.
• Option 2: The passage emphasizes education's role in poverty, not that government solutions for poverty are less effective than promoting marriage. Eliminate.
• Option 3: The passage does not claim marriage collapse is the primary cause of child poverty. Eliminate.
• Option 4: The passage discusses how poverty (linked to marriage collapse? Not directly, but the option's focus on marriage collapse diverting from education aligns with the passage's emphasis on education as key. Wait, re - evaluating: The passage's main idea is about the link between education and poverty. But among the options, the fourth option says focusing on marriage collapse takes attention from quality education (a key focus of the passage on poverty - education link). The other options are inconsistent. So the correct option is the one about focusing on marriage collapse taking attention from quality education.

Answer:

The option "Focusing on the collapse of marriage takes attention away from a more important focus of providing quality education to children." (the fourth option in the list of choices)