Question

Read the following passage and answer the question:

Passage:

"A scientific article described a phenomenon as exhibiting superfluous complexity, a term that some readers found ambiguous. To clarify the author’s intended meaning, readers consulted a combination of style guides, thesauruses, and online linguistic databases."

"By examining how the term was used in other peer-reviewed research and verifying definitions with multiple sources, readers concluded that superfluous indicated something unnecessary or excessive in the experimental process."

Question:

Which best demonstrates the application of digital and print resources to confirm the meaning of superfluous?

A.

Replace it with a general word like “complex” without verification.
B.

Rely solely on the sentence context to guess the meaning.
C.

Use multiple reference sources to determine that it means “unnecessary or excessive.”
D.

Ignore it since the rest of the passage is understandable.

Answer 1

C. The readers used multiple reference sources (style guides, thesauruses, online databases, and peer-reviewed usage) to confirm it meant “unnecessary or excessive.”