Q25

[chocolatebunny]

I eliminated A, C, and D right off the bat for this one. But then had a little trouble between B and E. I picked B based on the third paragraph's treatment of the English commitment to the omnipotence of their parliament and its representatives. WHy is this incorrect?

[noah]

This inference question asks us what the colonials would have said is a source of debate with England. The essential thing to notice is that we're asked what the colonials would say, not what someone else would say.

(E) is supported by lines 10-12, where we hear that the colonials felt they were more loyal to the English political tradition than the English English. We hardly have to move off this sentence to arrive at (E).

(A) is unsupported--while the author is arguing that the vocabulary has changed, we never learn that colonials would have stated this. Perhaps they didn't realize what was happening.

(B) is tempting since we learned that the English English were handing over increasing power to their parliament. However, we don't learn that the colonials were not committed to their parliaments, just that they didn't want them to have so much power. Furthermore, even if there was less committment, we don't have any evidence that the colonials were aware of this difference.

(C) is grossly unsupported.

(D) is contradicted--the colonials did use some English political institutions.

I hope that clears up your question.

[wgutx08]

I still feel totally lost about this question. "A source of debate" would mean something that is viewed differently by the colonials and the English? So we are supposed to look for a statement on which, the colonials believe, they would disagree with the English?

But what the English think about all these is nowhere mentioned in the text, so what are we supposed to pick?

I get that E is the sentence following the "debated" in L9. But both sentences together only tell us that the colonials claim a greater loyalty during their debate, they did not tell us that this topic is a subject of debate or that the English disagreed with them!

So B could also be the answer--- for example:

Colonials: you Englishmen are way to committed to parliamentary representation.
English: no we are not, you guys are not committed enough.
Colonials: Whatever, but WE are the ones who are more loyal to the English political tradition!
English: OK I won't disagree with that.

I guess the only potential subject of debate we know about would be the meaning of "constitution". But even in this case, we don't know if the colonials are aware of the difference.

...please help.....

[noah]

I still feel totally lost about this question. "A source of debate" would mean something that is viewed differently by the colonials and the English? So we are supposed to look for a statement on which, the colonials believe, they would disagree with the English?

But what the English think about all these is nowhere mentioned in the text, so what are we supposed to pick?

I get that E is the sentence following the "debated" in L9. But both sentences together only tell us that the colonials claim a greater loyalty during their debate, they did not tell us that this topic is a subject of debate or that the English disagreed with them!

So B could also be the answer--- for example:

Colonials: you Englishmen are way to committed to parliamentary representation.
English: no we are not, you guys are not committed enough.
Colonials: Whatever, but WE are the ones who are more loyal to the English political tradition!
English: OK I won't disagree with that.

I guess the only potential subject of debate we know about would be the meaning of "constitution". But even in this case, we don't know if the colonials are aware of the difference.

...please help.....

Thanks for explaining your question so well--it makes it a lot easier to help.

As you foreshadow, I think the issue is your interpretation of the question stem. Something being the "source of a debate" is different than what's actually debated. For example, I could say that the source of my debates with my wife are that we both are stubborn and know-it-alls, but the debate could be about, oh, I don't know, whether to allow our kid to play with a bucket of beans inside the house. (I mean, I know it's fun for him, but I don't want to spend my life picking up beans.)

So, here, we're asked what the Colonials would have said is a reason they're debating--not necessarily what they're debating.

In the imaginary dialogue you suggested (which is a fun way of thinking about RC questions), the following is well-supported by the passage:

Colonials: We're more English than those English! That's why we keep debating them about how to interpret the role of Parliament and a constitution.

That clear it up?

[wgutx08]

Thank you so much Noah! Your explanation, and especially the imaginary comment from the colonials totally helped me realize my mistake. Yeah I misunderstood the meaning of "source of debate".

...and after I understood that, I also realized that I missed the true gist of L5-L12. L10-12 is not just what the colonists claimed during the debate, it's what they think to be the source (reason!!) of the debate because they don't realize that the true reason is actually their American experience (L7-L9). So the "in fact" in L10 actually means "instead".

Now Q25 suddenly looks very straightforward Thanks again Noah!

[noah]

Now Q25 suddenly looks very straightforward Thanks again Noah!

My pleasure!

[phoebster21]

I too had your exact reasoning about answer choice B.

The explanation really clarified it.

Wanted to ask if lines 4-6 are extra support for this really minute (and odd) distinction between source[i] of debate and [i]actual content[i] debated. Specifically, the passage says, "steeped as they were in the English political language, these colonials [i]failed to observe that their experience in america had given the words a significance quite different."

Does the word "failed" mean that these colonials didn't, at that point, understand/realize that they were interpreting things differently from their English counterparts and that's why they've misconstrued their (the English English's) alleged loyalty??