Q23

[nickek]

D vs E please

I see in the last paragraph: "the front-to-back is motivated in part by the traditional desire in science to separate the observer from the phenomenon"

[christine.defenbaugh]

Thanks for posting, nickek!

I think you may be confusing a "traditional desire" of science line 44) with "traditional explanations" (answer (D)). The latter is referring to the traditional physics explanation for mirror (field-of-sight) - the explanation given in paragraph 1.

We're looking for something the author believes about the "front-to-back" explanation, which is explained in paragraphs 2, 3, and the beginning of 4.

In lines 26-28, the author states that "[t]his explanation....is quite successful at explaining what a mirror does -- to a point." This suggests that the author believes the explanation is limited, or flawed in some restricting way. We have to go all the way to the end of paragraph 4 to see what the author thinks is missing in front-to-back explanation.

Line 48-51: "However, questions about the appearance of images can be properly answers only if we consider both what mirrors do and what happens when we look into mirrors." (emphasis added) It is this second part that front-to-back theory is missing, and it is this that limits how successful the explanation really is.

(E) reflects this perfectly. The success of the explanation is limited because we're missing "what happens when we look into mirrors."

As for (D), there are a few issues here that are troubling. First, I'm not sure whether front-to-back is really "consistent" with the traditional, field-of-sight explanations (which are given in paragraph 1). The two explanations are pretty different...

Also, the fact that the answer begins with "successful only to a point because", suggest that this consistency (if it exists) is the reason that the success of front-to-back is limited, i.e., why it's only successful to a point. The author has criticisms for the front-to-back theory, but he never suggests that any similarities it has to the traditional, field-of-sight theory are bad, or limiting its success.

Let's take a look at the remaining wrong answer choices. Each of these begins with "successful because", implying that whatever element is raised is the reason for the success (as opposed to (D) and (E), which focus on the limitation of success.)

(A) Reconciling the seemingly incongruous facts about how things appear in mirrors is something that every mirror explanation attempts to do. This doesn't distinguish the front-to-back explanation from the field-of-sight explanation.

(B) Quite the opposite! The front-to-back explanation embraces our mental constructs of the objects in mirrors - even though they don't actually exist.

(C) Quite the opposite! The front-to-back explanation rejects the rotation of a field of sight about an axis, because it removes the concepts of observer, perception, etc, altogether.

It's important not to get focused on a single word match, like "traditional". Instead, triple check that the line reference you are using for support matches the full meaning of the answer choice.

Please let me know if this helps clear up your question!

[nickek]

Thanks for the effort, I understand where I stumbled.