#9 - Concept Reference, Must Be True, Subject Perspective

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (B).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

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

[Sophia123]

Hi!

I am quite confused on why (C) is incorrect for this question. I re-read this portion of the passage and think that I still would have chosen this answer. In lines 6-14, it appears that Weil and Auerbach were asking questions such as "Did the Trojan war really happen" and "How did the poems get written down" etc, which made me consider that they were primarily concerned, or focused on, historical issues or with issues of oral poetry. It seems to me that their focus was the opposite of analyzing the poetry itself and its literary qualities. Any guidance that can be offered on where I am going wrong on this one would be much appreciated!

Thank you in advance!

-Sophia

[Adam Tyson]

Let's take a look at the critical language in the passage, Sophia. Here we have the only mention in the passage of the two scholars in question:

During these years, while such nonacademic intellectuals as Simone Weil and Erich Auerbach were trying to define the qualities that made these epic accounts of the Trojan War and its aftermath great poetry, the questions that occupied the specialists were directed elsewhere:

The structure of this section is telling us that Weil and Auerbach are "nonacademic intellectuals" who stand apart from the "specialists" mentioned after them. These two people are concerned with the poetry for its own sake, while the specialists are the ones looking into the history and nature of oral poetry. Look to the lines just before this quote, too, and you'll see that our author is telling us that it was the nonspecialists who were studying the poetic aspects of the Iliad and Odyssey. Weil and Auerbach are given as two examples of those nonspecialists. That's why B is the right answer, and C the attractive wrong one. These two folks are not the rule, but the exception to the rule, about what type of analysis was being done of those poems in the years 1935 to 1970.

Breaking down the structure here, it's something like this:

While X was doing one thing, Y was doing something else.

Weil and Auerbach are the X, and the specialists are the Y.

I hope that clears that up for you!

[Sophia123]

oh my goodness - I totally misread the part about specialists. Thank you so much for the great explanation!

[Khodi7531]

I got -0 on this passage but just wanted to reassure how I got this wrong... I was between B C D.... C I got rid of because I was anticipated an a/c that needed to speak more in detail about the specific of homers work. Not general, but how they studied "the poetic aspects" of essentially what was written ALREADY.

D...inherited by homer? That was already throwing me off and B read like my anticipated a/c. What do you think?

[Adam Tyson]

I think your analysis is pretty good, Khodi7531, although I am confused a bit by your post. You said you went -0, and you appear to have selected the correct answer (which was B ), but you said you wanted to understand how you got this one wrong. From what I can see, you didn't get anything wrong!

FWIW, my analysis led to a prephrase of "what made these peoms great" based on lines 7-10, the only place where these particular intellectuals were mentioned. That made answer B a slam dunk, not even a hesitation at C or D. By going back to those lines before looking at the answer choices, I knew without question what I should be looking for. That's the beauty of prephrasing based on the text! Read the question, return to the right section of the passage to find the answer, prephrase it, and then find it among the five choices presented.