When a question asks for the purpose of a text, read the text and identify the main idea. The first sentence introduces the topic of early motion pictures (films), describing it as "a time of unbridled opportunity." The second sentence elaborates on specifics, that there were "few checks" on what early film-makers did. The third and fourth sentences describe early film-makers as eclectic, "more scientist than artist," making very short films distributed in an ad hoc way, which is to say any presentation of the film is done haphazardly whenever needed in an unorganized way. The remainder of the text explains that regulation of early films was difficult, if not impossible, explaining that they often featured content that was shocking by "the social norms of the day," but offers little detail beyond a vague description of "violence, passion, or vice." When predicting a purpose, start with a verb that describes the overall tone of the passage. For this passage, a good prediction starts with a neutral verb, like to explain, or to show, as opposed to a more charged verb such as, to argue or to persuade. Then add the main idea. Here, a good prediction might be: to describe what the very earliest film-makers and their movies were like. This prediction best matches (A), the correct answer.
On test day, choose (A) with confidence and move to the next question, but for practice: eliminate (B) because it is out of scope, as there is no mention of content regulation in modern films; eliminate (C) because it misrepresents a detail from the passage, as there are no specific examples given of the content in early films, and the word "horrifying" is too extreme; eliminate (D) as it misrepresents a detail, because while scientists and artists are mentioned in the passage there is no discussion of them having differing motives.
