#20 - Lyle: Admittedly, modernizing the language of

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation.

Point at Issue / Cause and Effect. Answer choice (D) is the right answer.


Lyle believes modernizing the language of plays lowers the aesthetic quality but is still worthwhile to teaching history because people who would have never seen the plays before will enjoy them.

Carl believes modernizing them causes a loss to the language of the originals, and therefore modernizing is NOT worthwhile to teaching history, because people are not getting the original knowledge of the plays.

We're looking for an answer choice addressing what the two speakers disagree about. Here, that is whether or not it is worthwhile to modernize plays to teach history. Both speakers talk about this, with contrasting viewpoints.

Answer choice (A) - Both speakers agree on this point (although Lyle thinks the value is positive, while Carl thinks it is negative) so this can't be the right answer.

Answer choice (B) - Only Lyle talks about the aesthetic quality of the plays, so this cannot be a point of which both speakers disagree.

Answer choice (C)- Neither party states that the original version is the 'highest' aesthetic enjoyment

Answer choice (D) - This is the correct answer. The parties have differing opinions about whether this is valuable or not.

Answer choice (E)- Only Lyle talks about aesthetics, so this cannot be correct.

[maximbasu]

Hi,
I chose B while the correct answer is D.

Lyle and Carl both disagree whether modernizing play is valuable for teaching history:
Lyle--> "modernizing remains valuable for teaching history"
Carl--> "modernizing plays is of no use for teaching history"

Lyle talks about plays "lessening aesthetic quality" while Carl does not.

Is that why B is wrong? Because Carl does not talk about aesthetic quality, but rather "increasing the accessibility of modern plays?"

Lyle--> "since it makes plays accessible to students"
Carl--> "prevents students from understanding fully"

MB

[Jonathan Evans]

Max,

Good job tackling this admittedly unusually difficult Point at Issue/Point of Agreement question.

Essentially you need to break the prephrasing down to a question: "What would one of them definitely agree with and what would one of them definitely disagree with?"

You may anticipate that they will disagree about whether modernizing language in premodern plays is worthwhile, but since this will likely be a more difficult question, such prephrasing will likely be inadequate by itself to get you to the credited response.

Consider (A): Lyle might say maybe. Cross it out. We need definite yes and nos.

(B) Lyle says no, but we don't know what Carl says. Cross it out.

(C) Womp womp. Stupid answer. Cross it out.

(D) Lyle says yes. Carl says no. Contender.

(E) Another stupid answer. Cross it out.

(D) is the credited response.

To answer your question, great observataion. Carl doesn't talk about aesthetic quality. We can't get a definitive answer from him. Cross it out.

[bli2016]

Hi, for this question I chose A. After reading the explanation above, I now know that A is not the answer, but my reasoning is that both Lyle and Carl would answer yes to whether modernizing the language of premodern plays results in plays that have different pedagogical value than originals. Based on the stimulus, Lyle thinks that modernizing the plays makes them more valuable for teaching but Carl believes that modernizing makes them less valuable for teaching. Is my understanding of answer choice A flawed? Thanks

[Ricky_Hutchens]

Hi bli2016,

I think you've got this right but don't realize it. The question asks for a point of disagreement between them. They both would agree that modernizing the plays have different pedagogical values, so that can't be a point of disagreement between them.

[nrpandolfo]

Hi,

I don't fully understand why B is wrong as Carl doesn mention that modernizing (which in turn lessens aesthetics) is of no use for teaching

[Daniel Stern]

The problem with answer B is that Carl doesn't mention lessening aesthetic quality, only the first speaker (Lyle) mentions that. So we don't know whether Carl would agree that the modernizing even causes loss of aesthetic quality, let alone whether that diminishes the pedagogical value.

Answer D gets us directly to a point of disagreement/ contention between the speakers: first speaker Lyle believes modernizing the plays helps teach history, second speaker Carl believes modernizing the plays "is of no use."

Good luck in your studies!
Dan