Q5

[dfay91]

I narrowed this down to B) and E), but I had a very hard time deciding which to choose and eventually ended up with E), the wrong answer. While I can find some support for B)--"while this ordering may seem fragmentary and confusing... (lines 42-49), I felt like that wasn't the author's main view or attitude toward the book. It's a concession to his readers' probable misunderstanding of its structure, but I feel like the author's view of the work itself is found in lines 35-36--"Getting Home Alive departs even further from the conventions typical of autobiography." That seemed like the author thought the work was a unique kind of autobiography that critics would not normally consider, and thus E)--They should broaden their understanding.

[tommywallach]

Hey Dfay,

Tough question here, and you definitely got it down to the best two. As always, let's unpack the most important piece of the text to help us look for our answer:

"Getting Home Alive departs even further from the conventions, [description of how]; while this ordering may seem fragmentary and confusing, it is in fact a fully intentional and carefully designed experiment..."

A) No disappointment has been expressed here, and it's never described as a sequel.

B) There's no reason to say "may seem fragmentary" unless there's some expectation that people might not understand the purpose of the weirdness. Is this a perfect answer? Not at all! But we'd definitely keep it.

C) The author loves the book, so wouldn't be surprised if other people liked it.

D) While the author loves it, nowhere is it said that scholars will definitely all recognize it.

E) The problem here is the word "critics." Nowhere does the passage say that these books (which, by the way, only accomplish the task of broadening autobiography COLLECTIVELY, rather than one by one) broadened critics' understanding, but only the genre itself. Finally, notice how B actually refers ONLY to this book, while E refers to ALL THE BOOKS AT ONCE. The question only asks about this book, so B is better for that reason as well.

Let me know if that all makes sense!

-t

[shirando21]

Hey Dfay,

Tough question here, and you definitely got it down to the best two. As always, let's unpack the most important piece of the text to help us look for our answer:

"Getting Home Alive departs even further from the conventions, [description of how]; while this ordering may seem fragmentary and confusing, it is in fact a fully intentional and carefully designed experiment..."

A) No disappointment has been expressed here, and it's never described as a sequel.

B) There's no reason to say "may seem fragmentary" unless there's some expectation that people might not understand the purpose of the weirdness. Is this a perfect answer? Not at all! But we'd definitely keep it.

C) The author loves the book, so wouldn't be surprised if other people liked it.

D) While the author loves it, nowhere is it said that scholars will definitely all recognize it.

E) The problem here is the word "critics." Nowhere does the passage say that these books (which, by the way, only accomplish the task of broadening autobiography COLLECTIVELY, rather than one by one) broadened critics' understanding, but only the genre itself. Finally, notice how B actually refers ONLY to this book, while E refers to ALL THE BOOKS AT ONCE. The question only asks about this book, so B is better for that reason as well.

Let me know if that all makes sense!

-t

Tommy, I don't think the passage talks about any scholars, academic commentators, or critics, that's why ACDE are out.
Is this correct?

[tommywallach]

Hey Shirando,

There is a single critic mentioned in the third paragraph, but you're right that PLURAL critics/commentators/scholars are never mentioned, so I think you make a really good point!

-t

[erikwoodward10]

I approach these questions by matching the "feeling" of the passage with the answer choice. For example, A is wrong because the author is clearly not "disappointed" with anything. Likewise, The strength of "insistence" also contributed to my eliminating E. This word seems to strong, the author doesn't seem to "insist" anything, rather is analyzing and explaining. Is this a valid reason to eliminate E?