#11 - Concept Reference, Must Be True, Purpose/Function

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (C).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

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

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

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

[Michaeltinti22]

Can anyone explain why C is correct but A isn't? I really have no idea for this one. Reading back on the passage, I felt like the author was quoting Pope to emphasize the critics' failure to analyze the poetic aspects of Homeric poems; I read it as a call to a literary authority to strengthen the claim. This seems to match A most closely. I didn't think it was C because it doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the passage. How would the literary environment of the 1700s impact the rest of the passage, which is centered on the 1900s. That seems like irrelevant information to me, although since it's the correct answer it clearly isn't, so I feel like I'm missing something here.

[Malila Robinson]

Hi Michaeltinti22,
You are correct that the passage focuses on the literary environment of the 1900s. The Pope quote was written in the 1700s and the author is saying that it is as relevant in the 1900s as it was when it was written. So just like in the 1700s, critics in the 1900s are focusing on the nonpoetical aspects of the writings. This leads to Answer C being correct.
For answer A we would need to author to have defined "poor treatment" or at least specifically called something about the critics focus 'poor'. It is referred to as 'dry' around line 44-45, but again that doesn't necessarily get us to the fact that it the works have been treated poorly.
Hope that helps!
-Malila

[plac23]

Hi
I chose the right answer here through POE. Because this is the only one being supported by the passage and this is factually right. But I can't see the author's purpose here, for the question stem said "in order to".
I am still confused about the purpose of this sentence. I can't see why the author write about this.

Considering all this, could you tell me the purpose of the sentence? Plus, could you please tell me whether it is correct to exclude a answer choice which is factually correct but does not reflect the purpose?
Thank you very much.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Plac,

I'm going to tackle your last question first: It is absolutely correct to eliminate an answer choice that describes something true from the passage, but which is not the purpose requested in the question. Wrong answer choices here can be wrong because they aren't from the passage, or because they are not describing the purpose needed.

So, why is answer choice (C) correct, you ask? We want to look back at that portion of the passage and get a sense of what was going on. It's the end of the first paragraph, which generally describes the different side quests scholars seem to be on when it comes to studying Homeric Epics. The quote at the end suggests that this is not a new phenomenon, but something that has existed for quite some time---from a work dating back to the 1700s!

When I read it, I had the sense that it was just like when people complain about "kids these days." You can go back hundreds of years and see complaints about "kids these days" and their newfangled tech---first printed books, then music, then video games, then the internet, and now cell phones. The purpose of the author here is similar---to show that these side quests in Homeric research have been an issue for quite a long time.

Hope that helps!