#9 - Concept Reference, Parallel, Author’s Perspective

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (B).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[kassierimel]

I held B as a contender but ultimately picked D. The reason I didn't go with B is because I thought that thinking something was X but then finding out it was actually more similar to Y didn't meet the description of what was going on with the trickster. D seemed to be a better description of the relationship: Classifying something as X only to find out that it isn't quite right—that it doesn't mean certain qualifications.

The "categorizing based on superficial similarities" was the attractive part of B, but I still can't figure out how to resolve the seeming discrepancy I mentioned above. Can someone please explain why D is incorrect and why B is correct?

[KelseyWoods]

Hi kassierimel!

Careful with your characterization of answer choice (D). Answer choice (D) states: "classifying a species of pine tree as an evergreen even though many of its needles turn brown and fall off during certain seasons." This describes a situation in which you might apply a label to something, even though the label itself ends up being a sort of misnomer. This situation has a real world counterpart--many trees are considered to be "evergreen" even though their needles turn brown and fall off during certain seasons. So answer choice (D) is not necessarily about mistakenly classifying something. It never states that this means that this species of pine tree is NOT in fact an evergreen. It has more to do with the limits of the term used for that classification than a mistaken classification.

The question stem is asking us to find an answer choice that is most similar to applying the term “trickster” to the character of the picaro. The passage tells us that the picaro is not really a trickster, but more of an agent of satire. This fits with answer choice (B): superficially the picaro seems similar to a trickster but a deeper understanding shows it to be related instead to satire.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[cleis_]

"Based on the author's view in the passage, applying the term "trickster" to the character of the picaro is most similar to which of the following?"

On its face I wasn't scared of this question. But when I started reading the answers.... What is going on here? These options seem way too abstract. I got the right answer but am having a terrible time thinking concretely here.

I could eliminate A, C, and E pretty easily. A I threw out because trickster and picaro are not different levels of the same topic, the author says they belong in completely different categories. C and E seemed to me to have the same problem; they both discuss an object and then a descriptor for the object, which is inappropriately applied. But trickster and picaro are discussed as two separate entities. I'm sure there's a way to put that that makes more sense to others, but I'll leave that to the teachers to translate (thank you in advance).

I ultimately eliminated D because... it seemed that it was a play on words? It seemed to raise another question for me (do evergreens... not lose their pine needles?). I KNOW that has to be the wrong way to approach that answer but I truly don't know what to make of it.

That left me with B, which I could sort of justify, but I didn't like that it seemed to have three subjects, the panda, the bear, and the raccoon. That didn't jive in my head - but the "superficial similarities" vs. "deeper understanding" fits with the passage nicely in my view.

Can someone help me break down the best way to approach this question and why I should eliminate D?

[atierney]

Hi Cleis,

This is a definitely a difficult question, especially given the similarity between the two answer choices, but let's examine them on a closer level, and see which one more closely expresses the idea of the passage.

And to do this, we would want to look and see what the passage indicates about the differences between the picaro and the trickster. Notice that the first paragraph begins by noting the similarities. In other words, the author certainly indicates that, at least on a superficial level, it might be easy to confuse the two. The second paragraph however clearly indicates the author's view that in spite of these superficial similarities, a "closer examination" of the two reveals key distinctions.

So essentially, the answer choice we would want to select is one that captures not only the idea of obscuring essential differences between two things, but also the fact that one does so due to acknowledged superficial similarities. B has both of these elements, while D does not.

Let me know if you have further questions on this.

[supernerd]

I'm still a little confused, because I don't understand the satirical element of answer choice B. I understand that on the surface, tricksters and picaros are typically both animals, but how is the unravelling of a bear actually being related to a raccoon satirical?

I chose C but the answer choices just went over my head.

[Adam Tyson]

Trickster is 'usually an animal acting as a human agent," supernerd, but picaro is not an animal. But animal/not animal isn't the issue here. We are looking for an analogous situation, a Parallel Reasoning type of situation, and because it is incorrect to call a picaro a trickster, our prephrase should be along the lines of the comparison being mistaken. This is because, despite some apparent similarities, the two things being compared are fundamentally different. The key is in the first sentence of the second paragraph:

Yet closer examination reveals that applying the term “trickster” to both characters obscures essential differences between them.

The correct answer need not have anything to do with satire. It's just "it's wrong to call this thing by that name, because even though these two things have some stuff in common, they are actually different in some important ways."

[kevin_dean_99]

I reluctantly chose A and rejected B. If someone could help me figure out where my thinking is wrong, I'd greatly appreciate it.

I rejected Answer B because I would have expected the passage to be different if B were right. Answer B says:

"People wrongly call X [panda] a Y [bear], but it's actually a Z [raccoon relative]."

If Answer B were truly analogous to the passage, I would have expected the passage to include more information. I would have expected the passage to say:

"People wrongly call X [picaro] a Y [trickster], but it's actually a Z [insert other category]."

But the passage didn't give a Z - another term or category - that the picaro would better fit into. Because the passage didn't include that "Z" factor for Picaro, I felt Answer B went beyond the scope of the passage. I saw it as an attractive answer, but a trick.

So instead, I chose A because it seemed like the least wrong of the answers.

Answer A says

"X [centrist view] is wrongly called a Y [extreme view]"

The passage also uses that same formula:

"X [picaro] is wrongly called a Y [trickster]."

[katehos]

Hi kevin_dean_99!

When looking at the passage, we can actually see how it does offer a "Z" factor: satire. The passage specifically states that the picaro is an "agent of satire" and the trickster "does not serve a satiric function." So, this is perfectly analogous to answer choice (B), as there is both a superficial understanding of something (picaros; pandas) leading to an incorrectly applied term (trickster; bear), as well as a more similar alternative (agent of satire; raccoon).

Additionally, (A) is incorrect for a few reasons. First, "extreme political view" and "centrist view" are two subsets of the same broad category (political views). This is not the same as improperly labelling one thing as another (picaro being labelled as a trickster) based on superficial reasoning, when in fact the first thing is something entirely different (an agent of satire). Second, (A) creates a scenario in which a claim is clearly wrong. In the passage itself, the author specifies that "closer examination reveals" the obscured elements, which seems to indicate that tricksters and picaro are similar at face value, but when taking a deeper look, they're different -- not that they're clearly different. This is much more analogous to answer (B), as pandas and bears are similar at face value, but closer examination shows that pandas are actually more similar to something else (raccoons).

I hope this helps
Kate