- Thu Jun 26, 2014 5:52 pm
#15110
l,
The first thing I want to point out is that, while the author's tone is an extremely important thing to identify in each passage, the tone of groups or individuals that the author discusses or even quotes may be relevant as well, so it's important to identify them. So it's not just the author's tone that you need to identify.
Keeping that in mind, you have to identify tone by focusing on certain words the author (or other viewpoint groups!) uses in expressing his/her view on the matter. If the author uses a word like "unfortunately," then the author is expressing a tone of dissatisfaction with whatever he/she thought was unfortunate. To identify tone, ask yourself questions like the following: "Does the author like this practice, concept, or group of people? Does the author dislike it? Does that author believe these people are mistaken?" Keep in mind that the author's tone can sometimes be perfectly neutral - the author will not offer an opinion on what is being explained, but will merely adopt a detached, academic tone, explaining the facts without taking any sides.
As I hinted at above, tone varies. An author could offer neither criticism nor approval of a certain thing, adopting a neutral tone. An author could favor a certain concept without fully supporting it or while offering some criticism of it; in that case, we would describe the author's tone as "qualified approval" or something like that. One thing to keep in mind is that author's in LSAT Reading Comprehension passages will generally not have extreme tones - an author's tone may be "critical" but it will more rarely be "scathing," for instance.
Look for words that reveal an author's (or other person's) attitude toward the things he/she discusses. This will let you identify the tone.
Robert Carroll
