Abbreviations in Comparative Passage Practice Answers

[ehilliard]

Hello,

I am practicing the comparative reading passages from Lesson 8 and I am a little confused by the homework key.

I am not familiar with the below abbreviations and can't seem to find an explanation anywhere.

PC
PE
AA
PRel
AD

Can you explain what those stand for or point me to a key if I am missing it?

Thanks!
Erin

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hi Erin,

These are designations we use for Comparative Reading question types only, and, to be perfectly honest, they have little instructional value. Briefly, here's what each designation stands for:

PC: Passage Commonality questions, which as you to identify something that appears in both passages.

PE: Passage Exclusivity questions, asking about info contained in only one of the passages.

AA: Author Agreement questions, which ask you to identify points of agreement between the two authors.

AD: Author Disagreement questions, which ask you to identify divergent perspectives, similar to Point at Issue questions in Logical Reasoning.

PRel: a variant of PC questions, these ask you to identify the relationship between the two passages, or between elements contained in them, in a more abstract fashion.

Again, there is no need for you to remember and catalogue these question types. When attacking Comparative Reading, a modified VIEWSTAMP approach is key: focus on the differences and the similarities between the two passages, know how they relate to each other, and have a general understanding of the arguments presented in each of them.

Good luck!

[ehilliard]

Hi Nikki,

Thanks! I was trying to see if there were any patterns in the types of comparative questions I was using. The above is very helpful.

Best,
Erin