Q15

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ohthatpatrick
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Atticus Finch
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Q15

by ohthatpatrick Tue Nov 13, 2018 10:58 pm

Joanna wrote:
Hi, my question is actually for PT 84 Passage #3 "Fiction Genre" Q15. Since I don't find the button for "Post a New Topic" under that page, I wanna try on this page and hopefully some administrator can fix the problem and drag my question to where it belongs. :D

This question asks about the author's attitude. I chose (C) "cautious neutrality" on this question while the correct answer is (A) "complete agreement". I cannot find any word in Passage A indicating that the author is backing Borges. To me, the author is academically rigorous by adding words like "according to Borges (line 12)", "Borges imagines/suggests(line 15, 17)", etc. Is there anything wrong with my thoughts?

I kinda always have problems with attitude questions. :( When should we choose a neutral attitude then? Any help is appreciated!!! :)



Hi, there.

I've never chosen a neutral attitude. NEVER!

It seems entirely possible that they could (or would) ask an attitude question in a passage where the author was neutral, but I haven't seen it yet. The attitude is almost always mildly positive or mildly negative.

You have to find an "author moment" to justify an attitude answer (although justifying neutral attitude would mean that there was an absence of author moments in the passage).

Here, I would be leaning purely on line 10-11, where the author indicates that she's intrigued by Borges' "insight" into the general nature of literature.

When she hits the conclusion of the passage in line 19-21, we understand that this is not only Borges' insight but also one that the author accepts.

ANSWERS
(A) YES. It's annoying that they would make it sound stronger with "COMPLETE agreement", but the idea is that since the author wrote this passage to present Borges' insight, never pushes back against it, and ends the passage with us feeling the full weight of Borges' takeaway, we can surmise that the author completely agrees. Mostly, though, we get this answer by knowing that the author finds Borges' ideas insightful and by not seeing any other answer that works.

(B) Where would we justify "reluctance"?
(C) Where would we justify "cautious"?
These modifiers would necessitate some moment when the author hedges her acceptance or mentions at least one qualm or misgiving she has about an idea.

(D) and (E) are negative, so these make no sense.

Hope this helps.
 
henryyoucuhk
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Re: Q15

by henryyoucuhk Wed Jan 16, 2019 10:36 am

Hi, Patrick! Thank you for your explanation for this one! I have a question for Question 17 of this passage, but It seems that the button for "Post a New Topic" is still missing. :cry: So I wanna have a try here....And I will sincerely appreciate it if you (or any administrator) would like to assist with Question 17 of this passage.

For Question 17, I choose between (A) and (D), it seems that the correct answer choice (A) is mixing the concept of "borderline cases" in 1st para of Passage B with "use of protocol" in 2nd para of Passage B. And for (D), it seems appealing to me in that line (32)-(34) suggests that "we can read any text as we wish".

Thank you in advance! :)