Reading Comprehension

PT135 · S3 · P2 · Q12 Information Archival

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While recent decades have seen more information recorded than any other era, the potential for losing this information is now greater than ever.

Topic

The risk of losing modern information due to the fragility and rapid obsolescence of recording and storage technologies.

Framework

Problem / Solution

Main Point

Although we now create and save more information than ever, the materials and technologies we use to store this information are increasingly fragile and quickly become outdated, making it very challenging for archivists to preserve important records for the future. (The key sentences summarizing this idea are in the first paragraph: )

P1: The Fragility of Modern Storage Media

We learn that even though we're recording tons of information these days, we're at greater risk than ever of losing it, mainly because modern recording materials (like acidic paper, color photos, and videotapes) are way less durable than the old stuff (like clay tablets or parchment). So, archivists are stuck dealing with this paradox of more information but less reliable media.

P2: Technology's Double-Edged Sword

It might seem like saving everything digitally would solve this problem, but rapid changes in technology can make stored information inaccessible surprisingly quickly. For example, data saved on older computer disks can become unreadable as the software and hardware change, and even new digital tapes only last about ten years. Archivists are feeling the pressure as time runs out for both old and new media.

P3: The Tough Choices Archivists Face

Even if we develop storage tech that finally lasts, archivists will still have to decide what is worth saving—fast—since things are deteriorating all the time. Figuring out the value of each item is tricky, as history has already lost some great works simply because no one realized their importance at the time. The real danger now is that there is just so much stuff, stored on media that doesn't last, that archivists might not be able to sort and save what's most important before it's too late.

12.

The passage provides the most support for inferring which one of the following statements?

Information stored electronically is more
Unknown Comparison Out of Scope: theft
We never talked about unauthorized use or theft, so there's no basis in the passage for supporting this answer.
1% picked this
Much of the information stored
Out of Scope
Out of Scope: transferred to digital storage Too Strong: much of what's on optical The only time we talk about the optical computer disks in the 1980s is in the middle of the 2nd paragraph. At no point does it talk about any of that stuff being transferred onto digital storage tape, which is only ever talked about in the following sentence. This is just a classic Word Salad (i.e. unsupported relationship) where they grab nouns/phrases from different parts of the passage and smush them together to create a new meaning. In this case, optical disks from the 80s and 'digital storage tape' appeared in consecutive sentences (which were joined by "and', as in, "and another thing...") and so they wrote an answer that just invented a relationship between them. "Much of" doesn't have a precise meaning, but you would assume we're talking at least 30% or so.
6% picked this
The high cost of new
Too Strong: high cost prohibiting
We don't have anything that sounds like the cost is prohibitively expensive for many archivists. The only thing we're told making them reluctant to transfer to computer disks and tape (end of 2nd paragraph) is that computer technology is "ever-changing", so they may put stuff onto a format that they have no way of accessing later. Also, we're told that recent generations of digital tape last only ten years.
0% picked this
Correct
Media used recently to store
Why this is right
We have enough facts to support this claim, but we have to cobble together support from multiple places. At the end of the first paragraph, we're told that photographs last between 40-200 years (depending on color vs. B&W) and that videotapes last about 20 years. At the end of the second paragraph, we're told that recent generations of digital storage tape only last about 10 years.
Skill tested: Inference · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.
70% picked this
The percentage of information considered
Too Strong: proportionally
This answer is claiming that if the amount of information that people are creating (selfies, TikToks, blogs, memes) is increasing 65%, then the percent of information archivists consider essential to store has also increased 65%. There's no reason it would ever be that tightly mathematically connected. We also don't have anything in the passage to relate those two things to each other (volume of material is in the first sentence of the passage, and essential material is discussed in the last paragraph). And common sense would tell us that now that we all have cameras we're creating terabytes and terabytes of dumb stuff that is not culturally essential for archivists to preserve.
23% picked this

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