#13 - Global Reference, Must Be True

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below! Thank you!

[em99]

Initially selected C but then chose D. I felt this was the most difficult passage from the section. I thought D applied to passage A because the author plays less of a role, since "participation of the reader is essential to the text". Then again, it doesn't mention the determinants of the genre in this text.

Overall I just have difficulty with comparative passages because although it's about the same amount of text, I find myself remembering less detail since the passages are different

[James Finch]

Hi EM,

It sounds like you made a mistaken inference about the relationship between genre and authorial intent in passage A. While it talks about the reader's role in determining genre, it's silent about the author's role (unlike B). It's not necessarily a zero-sum game, so we can't assume that because a reader's mode of reading can help determine the genre of a work, that the author's role is lessened. We always have to be careful to only infer that which has a clear textual basis, and not jump to conclusions, when reading RC passages.

In this case, a mechanical approach of checking to see that the role of the author is mentioned in both passages may have helped to eliminate (D) and correctly choose (C).

Hope this helps!

[Jane]

Hi!

I selected D as well. I understand why this is wrong now, thanks to the post above.

However, I strayed away from C because it narrowed the classification of genres to fiction. Passage B opens by arguing against one way of classifying fiction, but then when it starts proposing an alternate way to distinguish genres, it drops the word "fiction" (in favor of generic words like "a text"). It then poses an example specifically outside fiction (poetry), implying that the author's method of classifying genres is applicable to more than just fiction.

What did I miss from Passage B that indicated the author was concerned with fiction, specifically?

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Jane,

When we the question stem for this one, we notice it isn't asking for the ONLY thing the passages are concerned with answering, or even the main thing the passages are concerned with answering. The question is asking which questions are addressed/answered by both passages. In passage (B), the author discusses fiction after poetry, around line 50. It's certainly not the central part of passage (B), but it's addressed.

Hope that helps!
Rachael

[g_lawyered]

Hi P.S.
What makes answer choice A incorrect? There's support for literary meaning throughout Passage A. And I found support for literary meaning in Passage B Lines

"But the texts most central to a genre are those texts that were clearly written to exploit a particular protocol—texts that yield a particularly rich reading experience when read according to one protocol rather than another."

.

What did I miss here?
Thanks in advance

[Robert Carroll]

GGIBA003,

Answer choice (A) is talking about literary value. Neither passage seems to try to argue that works belonging to a genre have value - if anything, they assume that they have value, and partially the passages are trying to explain why that's true.

Imagine the passages were instead written by two Shakespeare scholars arguing about why Shakespeare is so valued even today. One says it was the inventiveness of his characters, the other the richness of his language. Neither one is trying to argue that Shakespeare is valued, but instead why he's valued.

In the passages on this test, the two authors really aren't disagreeing with each other, but I still think my example is helpful because it illustrates the difference between trying to show something has value vs showing why it has that value.

Robert Carroll

[g_lawyered]

Thank you for your explanation Robert!

[mab9178]

Hi

Would someone please clarify the following two concerns?

First concern is in regard to the word "genre," more specifically "genres of books": "Fiction" - like poetry, prose, mystery, science fiction... - is a particular genre?.

Answer-choice C states: "What determines whether a work of fiction belongs to a particular genre rather than another?"

C does not ask what determines whether a work of writing belongs to a particular genre rather than another?

Also, C does not ask what determines whether a particular genre belongs to a work of fiction rather than another genre?

C, as I understood it, rather asks to identify the determinants of a particular genre, "work of fiction," as belonging to another genre! Well, it doesn't.

Is C asking what are the determinants of a "work of fiction"? In other words, what are the characteristics/determinants of a work of fiction a work? C seems to be asking me what are determinants of one genre, fiction in this case, that makes it not itself but rather another genre!

To me, C is analogous to asking what determines whether a music work of jazz belong to hip hop, rap, rock or country?Well, it's jazz; it's already been determined!

And to make matters more difficult, which leads me to my second concern, on test day I would pick C because although I don't understand it, I know that all the others are wrong, but then there's a BIG ISSUE: where is the textual support (line numbers) in both passages for C? I could not find lines inn either passage that would invoke confusion that matches the confusion that C invoked in me to pick it. C is confusing, where in each passage can I find lines that would confuse me in similar ways, looking for determinants classifying an already defined taxanomy another classification/genre. (I have to have textual support, the correct answers require it!)

Thank you
Mazen

[mab9178]

Hi

I reflected on what made this question, #13, so puzzling to me. It's not really the question, #13, but rather the way answer-choice C is phrased. I could not bring myself to accept that a particular genre could have determinants that classify it as another genre.

But I went back and re-read the passages. In passage A, lines 5-8: "For Borges, this "special type of reader" confront literature with such 'incredulity and suspicions' that he or she might read any narrative as a detective story." I understood those lines to mean that if it's possible for a reader to read "any narrative as a detective story" (and I uncomfortably classified "detective story as a narrative in its own right and is distinct from the original classification of this same narrative ), then it must follow the reader's state of mind or one-sided approach can determine one genre as another. Insofar as passage A, am I correct, and did I identify the lines for textual support?

In passage B, the textual support is less subtle, it's centers on the reading protocols; specifically, lines 32-33, "We are free to read any text by any reading protocol we wish, and lines 27-29: "A more fruitful way to characterize the distinction between genres is to view it as a distinction between reading protocols." I interpret those lines to mean that "reading protocols" serve to differentiate genres, and since reader are "free" to use any protocol to read any text, then it follows that a text/narrative written as specific genre could be determined as another by a reader using her/his preferential reading protocol. Did I get the textual support from passage B for answer-choice C correctly?

(If I got it correctly, a simple yes would suffice and would be greatly appreciated for confidence on test day. I know that I gave you a lot to sort through between this post and my previous one.)

Thank You PowerScore Staff
Mazen