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- alovitt
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Jackie Chiles
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Q13
This is the type of question that I still have a good deal of trouble with. I easily eliminated B, D, and E. And I ended up picking A, but I was pretty hesitant. C was attractive because the two scholars could be Milman Parry and Adam Parry. By the way, "summarized" and "examined" both seem like appropriate descriptions to me, or is there a nuance I'm missing? I think the only reason I chose A over C is because of the "timeline aspect." But what else is wrong with C?
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- ohthatpatrick
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Atticus Finch
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Re: Q13
These can be tricky because you can have answers such as (C) that could be true, but be too narrow to capture the whole point/purpose of the passage.
If you asked yourself the question, "what was the main topic of this passage, the theme that permeated all three paragraphs?", would you answer "This passage was about Milman and Adam Parry"?
I hope not.
The author's focus was not these two. His focus throughout the 1st paragraph is on a weird dry spell between 1935 and 1970 where specialists wrote only about fringe topics relating to Iliad/Odyssey, while only non-specialists wrote about the poetic works themselves.
Milman Parry is brought up in the 2nd paragraph in order to identify him as the "ironic" catalyst that set this dry spell in motion.
Adam Parry is brought up in the 3rd paragraph in order to identify him as the catalyst for ending the dry spell.
So the main character of this passage is "the non-poetic dry spell between 1935 and 1970". That's the "situation identified", according to (A).
That's really what makes (A) a much better answer than (C).
If you want another way to think about it, it's hard to say that Milman Parry's works were summarized. His endeavors are described only in lines 27-35. Adam's works are discussed in 51-61.
That sums up to less than 20 lines out of the 60 total. We wouldn't be able to wrap our arms around the whole passage by picking an answer that only addresses 1/3 of it.
An "Organization" question will have a correct answer that moves chronologically through the passage, and it broad enough to relate to everything within the passage. (C) doesn't mention anything that relates to paragraph 1.
Hope this helps.
If you asked yourself the question, "what was the main topic of this passage, the theme that permeated all three paragraphs?", would you answer "This passage was about Milman and Adam Parry"?
I hope not.
The author's focus was not these two. His focus throughout the 1st paragraph is on a weird dry spell between 1935 and 1970 where specialists wrote only about fringe topics relating to Iliad/Odyssey, while only non-specialists wrote about the poetic works themselves.
Milman Parry is brought up in the 2nd paragraph in order to identify him as the "ironic" catalyst that set this dry spell in motion.
Adam Parry is brought up in the 3rd paragraph in order to identify him as the catalyst for ending the dry spell.
So the main character of this passage is "the non-poetic dry spell between 1935 and 1970". That's the "situation identified", according to (A).
That's really what makes (A) a much better answer than (C).
If you want another way to think about it, it's hard to say that Milman Parry's works were summarized. His endeavors are described only in lines 27-35. Adam's works are discussed in 51-61.
That sums up to less than 20 lines out of the 60 total. We wouldn't be able to wrap our arms around the whole passage by picking an answer that only addresses 1/3 of it.
An "Organization" question will have a correct answer that moves chronologically through the passage, and it broad enough to relate to everything within the passage. (C) doesn't mention anything that relates to paragraph 1.
Hope this helps.
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