#23 - Specific Reference, Must Be True, Purpose/Function

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (B).

Answer choice (A):

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

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

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

[ddddd8888899999]

I chose the right answer but basically by guessing between A and B. So I still have trouble seeing what B right and A wrong. The beginning of paragraph 4, seems to lend some evidence for answer A.

In addition to the specifics of this question, do you have any general advice on answering questions about the role of a citation when we hesitate between two answers ?

thanks a lot for your time
d

[Robert Carroll]

ddddd8888899999,

The author is not quoting Fugita and O'Brien in those lines in order to show anything they're doing wrong. The author does disagree with them, but the question is merely asking why the author quoted those two people in one specific place. The entire paragraph that quote is taken from is merely reporting what F and O said without offering any criticism of it. This decisively eliminates answer choices (A) and (D). If your only hesitancy was between answer choices (A) and (B), this gets rid of (A) completely!

More generally, you seem to be importing aspects of the passage not relevant to the question for this one. The author does have a negative opinion toward F and O. That doesn't mean everything the author said is directly serving the purpose of criticism. When a question asks about the role of anything, very often there will be wrong answers that DO describe SOMETHING happening in the passage, but not the role of the specific thing the question is actually talking about. So isolate the information relevant to the question.

Robert Carroll