ShmoopTube

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Here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by NASA. Via land rover, of course.

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Which of the following best describes the overall purpose of this passage?

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The most important word in this question is "overall." Don't tell it we said that, though. It already

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has a big enough ego as it is.

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The key thing here is not to zoom in on any of the specific details; instead, we need

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to zoom out to get the full picture the passage is trying to paint.

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We'll start by taking a look at choice (B).

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This information about Mars in popular culture is covered in the first paragraph, but doesn't

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pop up in the rest of the passage.

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We can cross this one out for being too specific... and for also failing to mention the first

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Total Recall movie.

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Arnold would not be pleased.

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Answer (C) doesn't quite make the cut either.

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Though the passage does mention some nifty facts about Mars, overall it doesn't go

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into a whole lot of detail about the planet itself.

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(D) also doesn't work.

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Several NASA missions to Mars are mentioned, but a whole lot more goes into them than the passage tells us.

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Choice (A) gets it just right.

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The passage's overall purpose is to introduce the missions to Mars and to provide some information

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about the planet.

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Although Total Recall has always been our go-to resource for all things Mars-related...?

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