DISCUSSION: The main point of the passage was to explain how the scholar researched Tucker’s life, and to justify those methods.
A must be true question must first be true, and then describe the whole passage. You can first eliminate any answers that are simply false.
___________
- Not even true. This says that Tucker is important because of how the author researched him. Nonsense. Tucker is important for his contributions, not because of how the author researched him.
- CORRECT. This covers everything: the importance of Tucker, the author’s methods, and the end result – a new study. Of course, it would have been a better answer if it also described how the author argues his methods are appropriate.
- This only describes the second part of the first paragraph. It’s one of the reasons the author wanted to study Tucker.
- This mainly describes the third paragraph.
- Actually, the first paragraph says that historians had largely ignored Tucker.
Adam says
I chose the same answer as well, but sometimes I feel that in your explanations you state that another answer is “in no way true” vs it being “the lesser of choices”.
Founder Graeme Blake says
I’m sure I don’t get everything exactly right, but I try to call things as I see it. Wrong answers tend to be decisively wrong. Presumably you’re referring to A. For A to be true, the author would need to be very arrogant and think that *their* methods are what give the biography importance, rather than the subject’s own importance. The author doesn’t seem to be making this claim whatsover, they are quite humble in describing their own work, meticulous as it is.
The other problem with A is that it says the new biography is important because it corrects misapprehensions. But the first paragraph shows that Tucker was largely ignored by historians. There weren’t even misapprehensions to correct.
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.
Adam says
How do you conclude that the first paragraph says that he has been ignored completely? While I could agree that it says that he was greatly undervalued or studied, it seems to me that the author mentions at least some research or discussion (although minimal).
Founder Graeme Blake says
I did put things a little strong here. I was speaking figuratively rather than literally. But as you say it’s true that Tucker got at least *some* attention from previous historians. I’ve updated the wording to say largely.
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.