Extract:
Yoga
Yoga is an exercise that everyone should try. Yoga was first practiced thousands of years ago. It helps connect the mind and body by taking a person through a series of poses while emphasizing controlled breathing and meditation. Every year hundreds of thousands of people enjoy the benefits of yoga by treating the movements and postures as exercise.
Yoga works by safely stretching muscles, ligaments, and tendons. This helps release the buildup of lactic acid in the muscles that can often cause stiffness, tension, and even pain. Yoga helps develop the body’s range of mobility and increases the ease of everyday movements. Many participants report improved flexibility, especially in the trunk and shoulders, after only two months of practice. Yoga improves posture, balance, and sleep, and it also helps with weight control.
Physically, many yoga poses help build upper-body strength, which is increasingly important as the body ages. Other poses help strengthen the muscles in the lower back, and when properly practiced, nearly all of the poses strengthen the body’s abdominal, or core, muscles. This helps improve the circulation of blood that increases the delivery of nutrients and oxygen to the body and also removes wastes produced by the body. When combined with yoga’s benefit of lowering a person’s heart rate, the result is increased cardiovascular endurance.
The University of Maryland School of Nursing recently published a study that showed yoga was especially effective at reducing stress. In addition, researchers found that yoga surpassed traditional aerobic exercise, often significantly, in improving flexibility, pain tolerance, and daily energy levels. One enthusiast says that her advice to skeptics is simple, “Take a deep breath, stretch, and indulge in a few poses. You’ll feel better.”
What is the author’s primary purpose in writing this essay?
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A
To persuade
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B
To entertain
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C
To analyze
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D
To reflect
The author's primary purpose is to persuade readers to try yoga through systematic presentation of benefits, research evidence, and personal testimony.
A) To persuade
The opening sentence "Yoga is an exercise that everyone should try" functions as a direct call to action. The author then builds a persuasive case through: comprehensive benefit listing, University of Maryland research citation, comparative advantage over aerobic exercise, and enthusiast testimonial concluding with "You'll feel better", all structured to influence reader behavior.
B) To entertain
No narrative elements, humor, or engaging stories appear. The presentation remains factual and advocacy-oriented rather than designed for enjoyment.
C) To analyze
While information could be analyzed, the author doesn't dissect yoga's mechanisms or critically examine claims, they advocate for adoption without analytical distance.
D) To reflect
No personal experiences or introspective thoughts appear. The writing maintains external focus on yoga's attributes rather than the author's contemplative response.
Conclusion
Persuasive writing combines direct recommendations with supporting evidence designed to influence behavior. This passage's structure, call to action, benefit catalog, research validation, testimonial reinforcement, exemplifies persuasive intent rather than pure information delivery.