#15 - Specific Reference, Must Be True, Author's Perspective

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (D).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

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

Answer choice (E):

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

[intent228]

'The author's attitude toward the "thesis" mentioned in the last paragraph is revealed in which one of the following pairs of words?'

Was able to get it down to D/E and selected D simply because I felt that "extremism" and "implausible" were a better, stronger fit than "naive" and "errors" but I cannot explain why E fails.

Any explanation to make the decision more concrete would be greatly appreciated.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi intent,

Naive really doesn't fit the thesis here. The "thesis" discussed in this question is the idea of all science being not based in reality. Naive (if we look back to the passage) is referencing the idea that the truth will somehow automatically reveal itself. That's a different idea. Both extremism and implausible are directly referencing the belief that science is not an objective view of reality.

For this one, I would recommend going back to the passage where they give you the lines, and read a bit about what those lines reference. Are they referencing the original thesis described up top, or a different position? It's all about tracking those viewpoints here!

Hope that helps!
Rachael

[KwakuS]

Hello,

I don't believe I fully understand the question. Is it asking simply which pair of words best describe the views of the new historians? That is how I understand the question. However, it seems that the question was asking for us to use the context of where the words were in the text. For example, does naive just mean the views of the new historians were naive, or do I have to look at where naive is used in the paper - that it's naive to think that new scientific discoveries will just pop out of the blue - and then determine whether the new historians exemplify this type of naivete?

Thanks,
Kwaku

[katehos]

Hi Kwaku!

This question is asking you to determine which of the pairs of words describes the "thesis" that natural reality does not play a part in determining what scientists believe. Looking at the answer choices, we see that all of these are words that were actually used by the author, so all we have to do is try to see if those words were used in the text when addressing this "thesis"!

You correctly point out that this thesis is associated with "new historians", so we can already prephrase an answer that will be somewhat negative towards the "thesis". Looking at answer choice (D), we can see that "extremism" and "implausible" are used in the text to specifically describe the "thesis" in question - it's perfect!

Other answer choices, like (E), while one could argue the author might agree that the "new historians" and their "thesis" are "naive", are incorrect because the word in question is not referencing the "thesis" from line 56.

Long story short, the best strategy here is to understand what the "thesis" in line 56 is, then look at each of these textual references to see if that is being used to describe the same idea/concept as the "thesis". If so, then that's the author's attitude towards the "thesis" in question!

I hope this helps
Kate