Q2

[ganbayou]

Ｈｉ　
I thought C was kind of tempting too because in the 1st paragraph the author asks a question and in the last paragraph it answers the question...so the reason is due to the large corporation.
Why is C wrong?

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Analogy/Application

Answer expected in lines/paragraph:
Last paragraph, since that's where we get keywords like 'perfume manufacturer' (line 45-47) and 'altered formula' (line 48-49).

Any prephrase?
Essentially, the point made in the last paragraph is that the author is unhappy that perfume manufacturers often alter formulas, replacing better ingredients with cheaper ingredients. They don't tell their customers; they hope the customers won't notice. (And the author, we know, is unhappy because they've messed with an ARTIST's delicately balanced creation). So the author would endorse altering a formula if any of those details were flipped - the replacement ingredients are as least as good; they're not just replacing for profit; they DO tell their customers; the perfume retains the artist's authentic vision.

Correct answer:
E

Answer choice analysis:

(A) Too specific. The author doesn't need all perfume to smell like one specific one.

(B) This is what typically happens. The author DOESN'T like the typical.

(C) Maybe. It sounds like we might have replaced an inferior ingredient with a superior ingredient. Can we assume that natural is superior? Can we assume that natural is equally or higher priced (otherwise, we might worry the company is just switching to a cheaper compound).

(D) The author cares about the artistry of the original formula, not the popularity or profitability of the manufactured perfume.

(E) Yes! The author ultimately cares about us respecting the 'art' of perfuming. The author blames manufacturers for altering formulas to save money, thereby betraying the subtle art of the perfume maker.

Takeaway/Pattern: Even though justifying C would have involved making some assumptions, I might have been willing to pick it if E weren't there. The author's #1 priority in this whole passage is getting us to recognize the artistic work done by a perfume creator. The only reason the author would care about a synthetic vs. natural ingredient switch is in terms of whether that switch would better/worse reflect the creator's original vision. So E is more directly answering the question.

#officialexplanation

[JinZ551]

Regarding answer choice B, I struggled to look back in the passage trying to find the word "synthetic".
I remembered seeing it, but I don't remember where, or even in which paragraph was it mentioned.
I know Q2 should be located back to paragraph 4 so I primarily searched in P4.
But I did not see it so I went further back to P3 and not there neither
To my surprise the word appeared in line 15, P2!!!
This is how I sink so much time in this question——trying to find detail support but end up failing.

So in future cases, what I should do when I couldn't find support, I should skip and move forward, right？
Or anyone has advice on how to accurately locate back to the passage?
Thanks in advance

[rarnold]

I chose C, but on a reread the author doesn't actually deign natural compounds superior. In fact, the author says "the perfumer carefully formulates natural AND SYNTHETIC chemical compounds."

The last paragraph says that the manufacturers substitute 'rarer, better' ingredients with 'cheap' compounds. But nowhere does 'rarer, better' mean 'natural,' and the author has acknowledged that talented perfume artists use synthetic compounds.