#3 - Concept Reference, Must Be True, Author's Perspective

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[samantha4]

I commonly answer these types of questions incorrectly. When we are tasked with finding some type of adjective that matches the author's perspective. For this question I guessed (A) but only activity ruled out (B). Any suggestions?

[Robert Carroll]

samantha,

The author's attitude toward Wheeler is strongly negative. His theory "still inhabits" history books - this doesn't look like a great attitude toward the theory already; the author is at least weakly suggesting that the theory's persistence is a bad thing ("people STILL believe this Wheeler guy?"). The rest of the passage after that point shows that there is not only a lack of evidence FOR Wheeler, but evidence AGAINST Wheeler, making it clear that the author has a negative attitude. So answer choices (A) and (B) are firmly on the opposite side of the author's opinion. Answer choice (C) doesn't work because it's not strongly negative enough. Answer choice (D) is incorrect because the author takes all the time to show how much the evidence is against Wheeler - if the theory were not worthy of attention, why is the author giving it so much attention? We're left, then, with answer choice (E).

Robert Carroll