RC Author Inference questions

Pride Only Hurts

Is there anyone out there who was able to defeat these Author Inference questions? These consistently make up about half of my missed RC questions and I have no idea how to approach them and why they're so hard for me. #help

Sami

@"Pride Only Hurts" said:
Is there anyone out there who was able to defeat these Author Inference questions? These consistently make up about half of my missed RC questions and I have no idea how to approach them and why they're so hard for me. #help

I would say the first task would be to ask yourself, can you clearly identify the author's point and tone in the passage towards the topic or people that he talks about. If not, then you definitely want to focus on picking up contextual clues as you read. A lot of times the author will make a remark on a person's position he is describing: he may use the words like "the hypothesis seems plausible" or "this theory assumes that" or "rests on evidence that seems to support" or "novel way of writing". Sometimes the author's position is on a spectrum: he may really like the person but maybe just has a problem with a tiny part of the person's theory or hypothesis but thinks the theory overall is great.

Once you have read and understood the author's view then you want to treat an author inference question like a most strongly supported question based on what you know about what the author thinks about the topic in each of the answer choice. For example, If an answer choice says -Asteroids orbit the earth in an elliptical orbit- and this was a theory that the author thought to be correct, then you can infer that the author would agree with this statement.

Pride Only Hurts

That's a great explanation. I also think part of my problem is getting overwhelmed when I need to go back and look for support so I end up relying on my memory. Often I'll go back in BR and find the support in seconds despite spinning my wheels for a minute during the timed attempt. But I do well with MSS support questions so perhaps looking at it that way will be enough to calm me down!