Integration of Ideas · Lesson 4

Fact, opinion and argument strength

Some integration questions ask you to sort what an author says into two kinds. A fact can be checked: a count, a price, a date, something that happened. An opinion is a judgment that a careful reader could reasonably disagree with, such as what is best, fair, worth it, or what someone should do.

Look for the signals of opinion: evaluative words (best, fair, hardship, worth), should and must, and comparisons no one could measure (no better use, the most practical choice). Don't be fooled by tone or numbers. A sentence can sound confident and still be a judgment, and a judgment can sit right next to a statistic. Ask two things: could someone check this, and would two careful people have to agree?

Other questions ask about argument strength: "Which detail best supports the author's claim that…" Work in three steps. Pin down the exact claim the stem names. Find the details near it. Then test the fit: is the detail relevant (about this claim, not just the topic), specific (a count, an example, an observation), and enough for the job? A true detail about the right subject can still support a different claim.

Fact or opinion: quick signals
Usually a factUsually an opinion
A count, price, date or measurementWords like best, fair, worth, hardship
Something that happened, said plainlyShould, must, ought to
A detail a record or a witness could confirmA ranking no one could measure (no better, most practical)

The Case for a Tool Library

This passage is from an essay about a town tool-lending project.

1Most households in Harlow own a power drill that gets used for perhaps fifteen minutes a year. The rest of the time it sits in a drawer, waiting for a shelf that needs hanging. Last spring, a group of volunteers tried a different arrangement. They collected donated tools, stored them in a spare room at the community center, and lent them free to anyone with a town library card. The town should now take over the project and fund it as a permanent part of the library.

2The trial run was small but busy. Over eight months, the volunteers lent 1,140 items to 312 different borrowers. The most popular item was a carpet cleaner, which went out 61 times; ladders and hedge trimmers came next. Only nine items came back damaged, and volunteers repaired each of them for less than twenty dollars.

3Numbers like these matter, but the strongest reason to keep the project is harder to count. A tool library is, at heart, a place where neighbors teach one another. On Saturday mornings, a retired carpenter named Wendell Ames sat at the lending desk and showed borrowers how to use whatever they were taking home. I once watched him spend half an hour helping a teenager rebuild a wobbly chair, and I can think of no better use of a Saturday.

4Critics on the town council have raised a fair question: why should taxpayers pay for something a hardware store already rents? It is true that the store on Main Street rents carpet cleaners, for 35 dollars a day. But a rental counter stocks only a handful of large machines, and it is open only during business hours. The volunteers' room held more than 400 different tools, from pipe wrenches to sewing machines, and it stayed open two evenings a week.

5Running the project as part of the library would cost about 18,000 dollars a year, most of it for a part-time coordinator. That is less than the town spent last year repainting the lines in the high school parking lot. Harlow has long prided itself on being a practical town. Funding the tool library is the most practical choice it could make.

Worked example Easy

Show the whole passage

The Case for a Tool Library

This passage is from an essay about a town tool-lending project.

1Most households in Harlow own a power drill that gets used for perhaps fifteen minutes a year. The rest of the time it sits in a drawer, waiting for a shelf that needs hanging. Last spring, a group of volunteers tried a different arrangement. They collected donated tools, stored them in a spare room at the community center, and lent them free to anyone with a town library card. The town should now take over the project and fund it as a permanent part of the library.

2The trial run was small but busy. Over eight months, the volunteers lent 1,140 items to 312 different borrowers. The most popular item was a carpet cleaner, which went out 61 times; ladders and hedge trimmers came next. Only nine items came back damaged, and volunteers repaired each of them for less than twenty dollars.

3Numbers like these matter, but the strongest reason to keep the project is harder to count. A tool library is, at heart, a place where neighbors teach one another. On Saturday mornings, a retired carpenter named Wendell Ames sat at the lending desk and showed borrowers how to use whatever they were taking home. I once watched him spend half an hour helping a teenager rebuild a wobbly chair, and I can think of no better use of a Saturday.

4Critics on the town council have raised a fair question: why should taxpayers pay for something a hardware store already rents? It is true that the store on Main Street rents carpet cleaners, for 35 dollars a day. But a rental counter stocks only a handful of large machines, and it is open only during business hours. The volunteers' room held more than 400 different tools, from pipe wrenches to sewing machines, and it stayed open two evenings a week.

5Running the project as part of the library would cost about 18,000 dollars a year, most of it for a part-time coordinator. That is less than the town spent last year repainting the lines in the high school parking lot. Harlow has long prided itself on being a practical town. Funding the tool library is the most practical choice it could make.

Which statement from the essay about the tool library is presented as opinion rather than fact?

  1. Over eight months, the volunteers lent 1,140 items to 312 different borrowers.
  2. Only nine items came back damaged.
  3. Funding the tool library is the most practical choice it could make.Answer
  4. The store on Main Street rents carpet cleaners, for 35 dollars a day.

How to solve it

  1. Ask of each choice: could someone check it, and would careful people have to agree?
  2. A and B are counts, and D is a price. All three can be checked.
  3. C ranks Harlow's choices with most practical, a judgment, so it is the opinion.

Why each choice is right or wrong

  • A. Incorrect. This is a fact: a count of items and borrowers that the lending records could confirm.
  • B. Incorrect. The number of damaged items is a count, not a judgment, so it is a fact.
  • C. Correct. Calling funding “the most practical choice it could make” ranks the town's options, and a careful reader could disagree. The superlative most practical is the signal of opinion.
  • D. Incorrect. A rental price is a fact you could confirm by asking the store. The author even introduces it with “It is true that.”

Worked example Medium

Show the whole passage

The Case for a Tool Library

This passage is from an essay about a town tool-lending project.

1Most households in Harlow own a power drill that gets used for perhaps fifteen minutes a year. The rest of the time it sits in a drawer, waiting for a shelf that needs hanging. Last spring, a group of volunteers tried a different arrangement. They collected donated tools, stored them in a spare room at the community center, and lent them free to anyone with a town library card. The town should now take over the project and fund it as a permanent part of the library.

2The trial run was small but busy. Over eight months, the volunteers lent 1,140 items to 312 different borrowers. The most popular item was a carpet cleaner, which went out 61 times; ladders and hedge trimmers came next. Only nine items came back damaged, and volunteers repaired each of them for less than twenty dollars.

3Numbers like these matter, but the strongest reason to keep the project is harder to count. A tool library is, at heart, a place where neighbors teach one another. On Saturday mornings, a retired carpenter named Wendell Ames sat at the lending desk and showed borrowers how to use whatever they were taking home. I once watched him spend half an hour helping a teenager rebuild a wobbly chair, and I can think of no better use of a Saturday.

4Critics on the town council have raised a fair question: why should taxpayers pay for something a hardware store already rents? It is true that the store on Main Street rents carpet cleaners, for 35 dollars a day. But a rental counter stocks only a handful of large machines, and it is open only during business hours. The volunteers' room held more than 400 different tools, from pipe wrenches to sewing machines, and it stayed open two evenings a week.

5Running the project as part of the library would cost about 18,000 dollars a year, most of it for a part-time coordinator. That is less than the town spent last year repainting the lines in the high school parking lot. Harlow has long prided itself on being a practical town. Funding the tool library is the most practical choice it could make.

In paragraph 3, the author supports the claim that a tool library is "a place where neighbors teach one another" mainly with:

  1. one observed example of a volunteer helping a borrower.Answer
  2. the count of items lent during the eight-month trial.
  3. a comparison with the hours kept by a rental counter.
  4. comments the author gathered from borrowers after the trial.

How to solve it

  1. Find the claim in paragraph 3: a tool library is “a place where neighbors teach one another.”
  2. Read the sentences right after it: Ames at the lending desk, and the chair repair the author watched.
  3. Test the fit: that scene is about teaching, so it is the support. The counts and the rental hours back other claims.

Why each choice is right or wrong

  • A. Correct. The support is one scene: Ames “showed borrowers how to use whatever they were taking home,” and the author “once watched him spend half an hour helping a teenager rebuild a wobbly chair.” It is relevant and specific, though it is a single example.
  • B. Incorrect. The count of 1,140 items is in paragraph 2, and the author sets numbers aside here: “Numbers like these matter, but the strongest reason to keep the project is harder to count.”
  • C. Incorrect. The rental counter's hours come up in paragraph 4, in answer to the critics, not as support for the teaching claim.
  • D. Incorrect. The passage reports no comments from borrowers. The only evidence in paragraph 3 is what the author saw at the lending desk.

Trap True, on topic, wrong claim

A choice can quote the passage word for word, come from a nearby paragraph, and still miss. The question names one claim, and the detail must back that claim. In the tool-library essay, “Only nine items came back damaged” is true and about the project, but it supports a claim about how borrowers treated the tools, not a claim about cost or about what a store offers.

Before you choose, say the claim and the detail together: "This detail shows that…" If the sentence you build isn't the claim in the stem, the detail supports something else.