Question

questions 9 through 14 refer to the following.
bring back home ec
(1) home economics was once a popular subject in high schools across america. (2) home economics is also called “home ec.” (3) these classes taught “homemaking” skills such as sewing, cleaning, cooking, and hygiene. (4) over the years, home ec has been removed from many school curricula, but there are some valid reasons to revive it. (5) the newly revamped version of home ec, now known as family and consumer sciences (fcs), teach valuable life skills to all students and should be brought back as a required subject in high schools.
(6) decades ago, home ec classes were geared primarily toward girls, under the antiquated and incorrect assumption that women were the only ones who would need to know the “domestic arts.” (7) in fact, in 1959, only 1.3% of home ec students were boys. (8) while some of the skills taught in these courses may have been valuable, they were presented through an old - fashioned framework and reinforced sexist ideals.
(9) today’s fcs classes are more modern and no longer built around the idea that certain tasks or skills are gendered. (10) common topics include nutrition, financial literacy, and family systems. (11) these are crucial and essential concepts about which everyone should learn. (12) young adults of all genders benefit from learning things like how taxes work, where their food comes from, and how to replace a button. (13) these are issues that inevitably come up in adult life, and no student should grow up unprepared.
(14) some may assume that teenagers are taught life skills at home, but this is not always the case. (15) schools have a responsibility to teach students the skills and knowledge they need to grow into sufficient
11 mark for review
the writer is considering deleting sentence 7. should the sentence be kept or deleted?
a kept, because it reinforces the information presented in the previous sentence.
b kept, because it supports the argument that home ec classes are helpful for everyone.
c deleted, because the paragraph includes no other statistics for comparison
d deleted, because it distracts from the paragraph’s focus on girls’ attendance in home ec classes.

Explanation:

Sentence 7 states that 1.3% of home ec students were boys in 1959, which directly contradicts the outdated assumption in sentence 6 that only women needed home ec skills. This supports the core argument that home ec (now FCS) is valuable for all students, so the sentence should be kept.

Answer:

B. Kept, because it supports the argument that home ec classes are helpful for everyone.