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Expression of Ideas / Rhetorical Synthesis Difficulty: Hard

While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:

Astronomers estimate that the number of comets orbiting the Sun is in the billions.
81P/Wild is one of many comets whose orbit has changed over time.
81P/Wild’s orbit once lay between the orbits of Uranus and Jupiter.
The comet’s orbit is now positioned between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars.

The student wants to make and support a generalization about the orbits of comets. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish these goals?

Astronomers estimate that the number of comets orbiting the Sun is in the billions; the comets’ orbits may change over time.

Like Uranus, Jupiter, and Mars, billions of comets orbit the Sun.

One example of a comet is 81P/Wild, whose orbit around the Sun once lay between Uranus’s and Jupiter’s orbits but is now positioned between those of Jupiter and Mars.

A comet’s orbit around the Sun may change over time: the orbit of comet 81P/Wild once lay between the orbits of Uranus and Jupiter but is now positioned between those of Jupiter and Mars.

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Explanation

Choice D is the best answer. The sentence makes a generalization—that a comet’s orbit around the Sun may change over time—and supports the generalization with the example of the orbit of comet 81P/Wild, which once lay between the orbits of Uranus and Jupiter but is now positioned between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars.

Choice A is incorrect. The sentence emphasizes the number of comets orbiting the Sun and makes a generalization about their orbits, but it doesn’t support the generalization with an example. Choice B is incorrect. The sentence makes a generalization about comets and compares them to the planets Uranus, Jupiter, and Mars; it doesn’t make and support a generalization about comets’ orbits. Choice C is incorrect. While the sentence provides an example of a comet whose orbit has changed, it doesn’t make a generalization about the orbits of comets.