#4 - Author Disagreement, Point at Issue

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (D)

As mentioned previously in the passage comparison, the main point over which the authors disagree is the accuracy and usefulness of the IIPA report. The author of passage A clearly feels the report is inaccurate and thus not particularly useful, while the author of passage B argues that “the core of the report is accurate and invaluable” (lines 49-50). The author of passage B never mentions the information in answer choices A, B, or E, so those are easily dismissed.

[jessicamorehead]

Hi there,

I chose the right answer, but I was a little confused on the explanation posted above. The explanation says that answer choices A, B and E can be thrown out since they were only discussed in A, but not B. By that logic, we can throw out answer choice C since it was only discussed in answer B, but not A. Therefore, does the correct answer to a question about author's disagreeing have to include points raised by both authors? For D, I can definitely see how "accurate and valuable" is explicitly stated in passage B, while "the IIPA has been criticized" is discussed in passage A. Basically, I originally thought the correct answer to this question could just be one of the author's opinions, assuming the other author would disagree with it. However, is it true that the answer has to have points discussed by both authors?

[Adam Tyson]

Good question, Jessica, and an important point about this type of question and the related "author agreement/point of agreement" questions in both RC and LR. On a Point at Issue/Author Disagreement question, we need evidence that one author would say "yes, that's true" and the other would say "no, that's false." We can't assume an author's position, but must base it on the evidence presented in the passages. They don't have to explicitly profess their agreement or disagreement with the statement in question, but we have to go on more than just an assumption.

Answer C can be eliminated because we have no evidence that either author would agree with it. The criticisms in the report didn't "lead to" (cause) reduced copyright protection, because the reduced copyright protection came first in time! One could say that the reduced protection caused the IIPA to criticize those countries, and this answer gets that backwards. Also, you're right that only passage B explicitly discusses "reduced copyright protection", although author A certainly alludes to it (and seems dismissive of the idea that those countries have anything to worry about).

There's ample evidence that author A does NOT think that the "core of the report is accurate and invaluable". His whole point is that it's not a very good or useful report, and that other countries should pretty much ignore it!

Base your answer choice on the clear text of the passages, and be sure you can point to that text and say "here is my evidence that this author would agree, and there is my evidence that the other author would disagree". Same thing with these questions in LR, Jessica! Rely on the facts in the text (since this question type is in the same family as a Must Be True question), make no unwarranted assumptions, and you'll be firing on all cylinders.

Good luck! Keep at it!

[jessicamorehead]

Adam,

Once again, thank you for your clear and thoughtful explanation! I now understand that I must find evidence to verify where an author agrees or disagrees within the passage, rather than just rely on my own assumptions.

Have a great day!
Jessica

[aidansalamone]

Hi,

I understand how the author's would clearly disagree over D, but I was actually very confused about answer choice A. Passage A makes the precise claim about Israel, and at the end, Passage B claims that "in each instance, the IIPA can identify some critical difference between US law and the law in question." To me this seemed like a claim that none of the criticized laws truly paralleled US law, which would put the two Passages at odds on this issue.

Am I misunderstanding what should be inferred by the term "parallel"?

[Luke Haqq]

Hi aidansalamone!

I can certainly address why (A) is incorrect. Answer choice (A) states, "Although its fair use law parallels the US approach, Israel was nevertheless criticized by the IIPA."

Since this is a point at issue question, and specifically one asking about a point of disagreement (rather than agreement), a strategy for testing answer choices is to put an "A:" and "B:" next to the answer choice and ask whether both authors agree or disagree about the statement. Importantly, you'll find that wrong answer choice on these types of questions often are ones where you can say whether one of the authors agrees/disagrees, but it's unclear whether the other author does. In this case, it's helpful to put a placeholder like "??"--that should be enough for you to eliminate the answer choice, since you can't say whether or not the authors disagree. Or if you find that you've eliminated all the answer choices, then it can be a place where you look to see if that author's views are indeed uncertain.

Here, you rightly note that Passage A contains clear language that indicates that the author of that passage would agree with this statement in answer (A), found specifically in the second paragraph. I'd therefore put an "Agree" to the right of "A:" since we know this. However, Israel is nowhere mentioned in Passage B, which prevents us from knowing whether or not the author of that passage would agree or disagree with the statement in answer (A). I understand how the language you cite at the end of Passage B could make (A) tempting, but it ultimately doesn't explicitly tells us whether this author agrees/disagrees that the fair use laws of other countries parallel those of the U.S. It does mention "some critical differences," but this doesn't prevent those other countries' laws from still paralleling the U.S. laws in many or most other ways. We therefore don't know the author of Passage B's views on this point, in addition to Passage B not mentioning Israel. This means we'd have for answer (A):

A: Agree
B: ??

Since we can't pin the author of Passage B on this statement, it can't be the correct answer for a question asking for a point of disagreement between the two.