Q11

[tianpuzhang1990]

Hi! I picked A for this question, thinking that the author is trying to quote Alexander Pope's words to show how something that is similar to what has occurred before is happening again. I understand that C is not wrong, but it doesn't seem to be the author's purpose here. And what is specifically wrong with A? Could someone help me out here please? Thanks!

[wguwguwgu]

Hi! I will try to give my two cents here:

I agree that C is not perfect. When I started to look at the ACs, I was expecting something like "to emphasize/describe the flaws of the critical study using a cool citation". I agree with you that I don't think it is clear that the author has the INTENTION to talk about the earlier century; rather, it just so happened that Pope, the author of the citation, did live in an earlier century.

However, I feel that the passage has really NO intention AT ALL to say anything about "English" critics. (As a passage for LSAT, probably the subject is about the Homer research in US I would guess) So "English" would be much more far-fetched than "earlier century".

Maybe the teachers/experts here can give us some further clarification...

[ohthatpatrick]

First, let me tell you about a fairly reliable "trick" when it comes to answering RC questions that say:
the author mentions _____ in order to
the author's reference to ____ primarily serves to

About 80% of the time, the correct answer is a paraphrase of whatever was said right before the line reference they're asking about. (The other 20% of the time it's a paraphrase of the sentence after or relates to the main point of that paragraph.)

Before the quote from Pope, we get the author saying Pope's observations "seemed as applicable in 1970 as they had been when he wrote them in 1715".

(C) reinforces this thought.

The real objective of "serves to" / "in order to" / "primarily to" questions is to get you to describe the relation of a specific detail to its surrounding context.

Let's take a step back and simplify what the passage is all about:

There's this dry spell between 1935 and 1970 when academic intellectuals stop studying Homer's poetry and start focusing on all kinds of tangential side issues. (1st P) The dry spell was ironically set in motion by Parry, a scholar who focused directly on Homer's poetry but sparked interest in side issues. (2nd P) And the dry spell ends when Parry's son Adam brings academics' focus back to Homer's poetry itself. (3rd P)

Taken in this context, what the heck is the Alexander Pope remark good for?

Well, the author is using it to gently mock the behavior of the academics during the dry spell; they're focused on tangential side issues ("Philosophical, Historical, Geographical") and ignoring the poetry itself ("rather anything than Critical and Poetical").

Other answers:
(A) Nothing in the passage talks specifically about how English critics treat Homeric poems. Also, "generally" is an extreme term, which typically means it's a trap answer in RC. ("typically" is also extreme) :p

(B) though Pope was a poet, his quote is about the behavior of critics. This answer makes it seem like Pope was concerned with side issues rather than with the poetry itself.

(D) this quote has nothing to do with difficulties of translation.

(E) this is the typical trap answer for this type of question: it does a bad job of paraphrasing the line reference itself, (whereas the correct answer paraphrases the nearby context). This quote wasn't about the clash between poets and critics ... it was just about critics. The fact that the quote comes from a poet is just incidental. The author could have quoted George Washington saying the same thing, and it would still just convey that critics have long fascinated themselves with side issues rather than the poetry itself.

Hope this helps.

[anglenasalt]

I agree with you that I don't think it is clear that the author has the INTENTION to talk about the earlier century; rather, it just so happened that Pope, the author of the citation, did live in an earlier century.