medium · SAT Reading & Writing
In a study of the 19th-century maritime economy, historian Elena Vance argues that the rise of steam-powered vessels did not immediately render sailing ships obsolete. She observes that the two technologies occupied different niches for decades, with steamships dominating mail and passenger routes while sailing vessels remained the preferred choice for bulk commodities like coal and grain, where speed was less critical than cargo capacity. This specialization allowed the sailing industry to remain profitable and even technologically innovative well into the late 1800s.
Which choice best describes the function of the second sentence (the sentence describing how steamships and sailing vessels each dominated different routes) in the text as a whole?
- It challenges the idea that cargo capacity was the primary factor in the success of the sailing industry.
- It explains why steam-powered vessels eventually replaced sailing ships across all maritime routes.
- It introduces a new hypothesis about the technological innovations that occurred within the steamship industry.
- It provides specific examples to support the claim that steam and sail coexisted in different economic sectors.
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