Colonial historian David Allen's intensive study of five

[RonPurewal]

this is not a good way to go about solving detail questions.
detail questions should NOT be 'processes of elimination'. that should strictly be a backup strategy.

rather, this is what you should do:
• understand EXACTLY what the question is asking you to go find
• find it
• note EXACTLY what the passage says
• pick the choice that says the same thing, in different words

[RonPurewal]

e.g., for the first one, we want to know the author's view on allen's "discovery".
so, we have an EXACT goal for our search: we want the author's personal commentary on this "discovery".
this is what the author says:
We are not told in what way, if at all, this discovery illuminates historical understanding.

• choice D expresses this same idea in other words.

• all of the other answers are wrong because they don't say this.

DO NOT search the text for each answer choice. that's a terribly inefficient—and unnecessarily difficult—way to proceed.
rather, you should solve these problems as though the multiple choices weren't there... and then look in the choices FOR THE ANSWER THAT'S ALREADY IN YOUR HEAD.

[AnkurA374]

Hi team,

In the same passage, is there any opinion by the author at all?

"Studies of local history have enormously expanded our horizons, but it is a mistake for their authors to conclude that village institutions are all that mattered, simply because their functions are all that the records of village institutions reveal." appears to be an opinion to me because of the following reasons:

1) it is a mistake for their authors to conclude that village institutions are all that mattered, simply because their functions are all that the records of village institutions reveal

So, we know that the author is basing his claim on an evidence that cannot be debated. So, this is not an opinion (solely author's point of view that can be debated). This is just an inference based on the facts. Right?

I understand that the passage has criticism for Allen's work, but I just don't understand where the author's opinion is in the passage regarding this criticism...he bases the criticism, all on facts...so, the criticism is not author's personal belief..it's something objective and derived more on the factual evidences...

Please let me know if I am missing something.

Regards

[AnkurA374]

Hi team,

In the same passage, is there any opinion by the author at all?

"Studies of local history have enormously expanded our horizons, but it is a mistake for their authors to conclude that village institutions are all that mattered, simply because their functions are all that the records of village institutions reveal." appears to be an opinion to me because of the following reasons:

1) it is a mistake for their authors to conclude that village institutions are all that mattered, simply because their functions are all that the records of village institutions reveal

So, we know that the author is basing his claim on an evidence that cannot be debated. So, this is not an opinion (solely author's point of view that can be debated). This is just an inference based on the facts. Right?

I understand that the passage has criticism for Allen's work, but I just don't understand where the author's opinion is in the passage regarding this criticism...he bases the criticism, all on facts...so, the criticism is not author's personal belief..it's something objective and derived more on the factual evidences...

Please let me know if I am missing something.

Regards

Hi Ron,

Based on our discussion earlier this one should be an inference based on a factual evidence provided in the passage, right? I am only worried if this has something that the author is conveying to us without basing it on a factual evidence.

Kindly let me know your thoughts on this one.

Best,
A

[RonPurewal]

you are totally overthinking this.

in any RC DETAIL question, there will be...
...1 choice that RE-STATES SOMETHING THE PASSAGE SAYS, just using a different phrasing
...4 choices that are COMPLETELY WRONG

if the passage says "my brother is taller than me", then the correct answer to a detail question might say
i'm shorter than my brother
the top of my head is closer to the ground than the top of my brother's head is
i can walk directly under some objects that my brother has to duck under
...notice that all three of these are EXACTLY THE SAME as "my brother is taller than me". just alternate phrasings of that same fact.

EVERY INCORRECT ANSWER will be EITHER...
...FALSE (= ACTUALLY IN OPPOSITION to what the passage SAYS)
OR...
...JUST TOTALLY MADE UP.

__

really... that's it.

there's going to be 1 choice that takes something the author has already said, and says it AGAIN... and 4 choices that are TOTALLY WRONG.

it will NEVER be necessary to think about these questions with anywhere near the level of detail/nuance that you're currently attempting.
in other words, you are currently manufacturing a great deal of extra difficulty where none actually exists. don't do that. keep simple things simple.

[GoldfishZ773]

Hi Ron,

I wonder what does the example suggest?

[*]What conclusion can be drawn, for example, from Allen's discovery that Puritan clergy who had come to the colonies from East Anglia were one-third to one-half as likely to return to England by 1660 as were Puritan ministers from western and northern England? [*]

Is it to show that Allen's approach of "country community" school is of little historical meaning? Then I'm a little confused with the correct answer D: an unexplained, isolated fact.

Because I assume the right answer to concern some " of little historical importance"....


Thank you!

[RonPurewal]

"What conclusion can be drawn from that fact?"
"... We are not told in what way, if at all, this discovery illuminates historical understanding."

there's your answer.

really, that's how RC detail questions work. you will NEVER have to find 2 different details, from 2 different places in the passage, and "put them together" to prove your answer choice.
the main challenge of these problems is simply to narrow your search and then FIND the relevant information.
once you've found the correct information, the reasoning is going to be VERY simple -- you're basically just going to look for a choice that says exactly what you just read, but in different words.

[JbhB682]

It can be inferred from the passage that the author of the passage considers Allen's "discovery" (see highlighted text) to be

(A) already known to earlier historians
(B) based on a logical fallacy
(C) improbable but nevertheless convincing
(D) an unexplained, isolated fact
(E) a new, insightful observation

I marked B ( based on a logical fallacy). Dont understand how Allen's discovery is an unexplained and isolated fact?
Please help!

Sure!
The relevant part of the passage is in paragraph 3 (the bolding is mine):

"What conclusion can be drawn, for example, from Allen's discovery that Puritan clergy who had come to the colonies from East Anglia were one-third to one-half as likely to return to England by 1660 as were Puritan ministers from western and northern England? We are not told in what way, if at all, this discovery illuminates historical understanding."

I think the bold says it all . . . we know this to be a fact but are not told how it is relevant to historical understanding and it is not connected to anything else. Thus, it is an "unexplained, isolated" fact.

Answer B) based on " a logical fallacy" is not supported by the passage. A "fallacy" is an error in reasoning that is frequently due to some misperception. There are no reasoning errors mentioned here.

I hope that this helps!

Hi - option D threw me off because of one word only ..that is "unexplained"

Reading the detail in the passage specifically [We are not told in what way, if at all, this discovery illuminates historical understanding.] -- this suggests an isolated fact certainly

but in no way does it infer the discovery is "unexplained"

"Unexplained" to me as a native speaker suggests, this discovery cannot be understood / not explainable by scientists or historians of the time (why is this discovery even happening in the first place)

No where in the detail in bold -- does the author suggest the discovery is /was ever "unexplained"

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

I disagree with your definition of 'unexplained'; I think that it's more contextual. I.e. this discovery could be explained by someone else, but simply Allen doesn't explain it. Think of a simple example, such as 'An unexplained vibration shook the house.' This means that, so far, and probably having done reasonable research, I don't know what caused it. Perhaps someone else does know, or perhaps someone else will explain it to me, but, from my current state of knowledge, it's unexplained.

This seems to be the case with Allen's 'discovery' about the clergy. The author of the passage makes the point that Allen doesn't put things in a national context, meaning that he offers no explanation for the fact that clergy from one part of England were more likely to return than were clergy from another part.