A town hall meeting looks informal, a room of folding chairs and a microphone passed hand to hand, but the format is doing real work. Anyone present may speak, which means an official cannot simply avoid an uncomfortable question by controlling who is called on. The tradeoff is that the loudest or most persistent voices in the room can crowd out quieter concerns that never reach the microphone at all. Some towns have begun collecting written questions in advance specifically to give the second group a way in that does not depend on standing up in front of a crowd.
The passage is organized primarily by
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Correct answer to question 73 (Paragraph Comprehension): presenting a format's benefit, then a limitation and a response to it
Method
The passage states the open-microphone benefit, names the tradeoff of louder voices crowding out others, and closes with towns' written-question response, matching the fourth choice.
Updated: November 2026
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