Determining Author's Attitude (Ch. 7, Mini-Passage Drills)

[AlyssaY]

For Mini-Passage #3 (page 256 of 2020 Digital Bible), question #2 asks:

"Which one of the following words employed by the author is most indicative of the author's attitude toward the ability of prosecutors to bypass juvenile court review following the passage of the new statute?"

For this question, I understood it to mean which word, as it is used by the author in the passage, most clearly shows his attitude toward the statute, not which word describes his attitude. I narrowed my answers down to A ("rightfully") and C ("regrettably") since both words were used in the passage to convey the author's POV. I ultimately chose C, even though I felt that "regrettably" was used more to describe the author's attitude toward the court's reluctance to question the constitutionality, rather than his attitude toward the ability of prosecutors. I considered answer choice A because I thought the author's use of "rightfully" in line 7 showed his attitude (and actually overall main point of the passage) which was in support of the opponents criticizing the new statute and its ramifications (the ability of prosecutors to bypass juvenile court review). His use of "rightfully" conveyed his stance.

In the answer key, it says that answer A is wrong because the author clearly opposes the ramifications of the statute and the explanation for answer D also says that it is incorrect because the author is not "reluctant", which implies that the correct answer must describe his attitude, not a word used by the author to convey his attitude.

For RC questions like this about author's attitude from words employed in the passage, I'm a little confused on how to approach them. Should we pick the answer that describes the author's attitude, or should we return to the passage where the word is used to determine how they are used in context?

Thank you!!!

[Adam Tyson]

One approach you can use, AlyssaY, is to start with a very broad question: does the author feel positive, negative, or neutral on the specific subject? The question stem here asks not about the author's overall attitude, but his attitude towards one very specific issue - the "ability of prosecutors to bypass juvenile court review." Does he like that? Is that a bad thing? Does he think prosecutors should be allowed to bypass review, or that they should not?

It's pretty clear hear that the author has concerns about this issue. He thinks it takes away discretion from judges and vests it solely in prosecutors, and makes a major function of juvenile courts irrelevant. He'd rather this was not the case. So, we start with the idea that his attitude is negative, and that immediately knocks out answers A and B.

One more thing here, and that is while the question asks which word used by the author best captures that attitude, the word doesn't have to be used for that specific purpose in the context of the passage. It's ANY word used by the author that captures that attitude, even if he used it in the passage to talk about something else. The author here used "regrettably" to show that he's unhappy about courts' reluctance to challenge the constitutionality of the 1996 statute, but it's ALSO how he feels about the general results of the statute, including that it gave that discretion to prosecutors.

So, to answer this question we need to start with a general sense of the author's attitude, and then find a word somewhere in the passage that could be used to convey that attitude. A two-step process, really, both parts of which are essential to success. These can be challenging, because the word used might not have been originally used for the specific purpose we are now looking for. Tricky!

[AlyssaY]

One more thing here, and that is while the question asks which word used by the author best captures that attitude, the word doesn't have to be used for that specific purpose in the context of the passage. It's ANY word used by the author that captures that attitude, even if he used it in the passage to talk about something else.

Thank you so much Adam, that explanation is super helpful. I can see now how this question is only asking for a word that captures his attitude and it's not relevant HOW the author used that word in the passage.

If the question had instead been worded as -- "Which one of the following words employed by the author is used to convey the author's attitude...?" -- then we would look more at the context of each word as it is used in the passage versus take a broad view of his attitude?

Thanks!

[James Finch]

Hi Alyssa,

Your example is still somewhat ambiguous. In most cases, the test would be a little more specific so as to avoid any potential ambiguity, so it would more likely be phrased as:

"Which one of the following words employed by the author is used by the author to convey his/her attitude towards...?"

This would be the clearest way to phrase the idea that the correct answer choice would be one consciously used by the author in the passage to convey the author's attitude about whatever subject, and not simply present in the passage, potentially in an entirely different and unrelated context.