Which one of the following words employed by the author in the second paragraph is most indicative of the author's at...

manvir on July 27, 2020

Why is draconian better than unpopular?

I thought draconian was too extreme to cover any hypothetical scenario where the internet is limited.

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Enola on September 29, 2020

I have the same Q, can someone please explain? Thank you!

Jazzy on January 14, 2022

Same question. Looking forward to someone replying

jakennedy on January 25, 2022

Hi all,

Great question.

This question directs us to paragraph 2 and asks which of the five words is most indicative of the author’s attitude towards denying citizens access to the internet. We have to first find the portion of the paragraph that discussed the prevention of internet access. We find it on lines 23-24:

“a government would thus have to prevent them from using the internet altogether”

Having found the statement in question, we must look around the area for the author’s opinion. Both the words “unpopular” and “draconian” were used in the following sentence:

"Such a draconian measure would almost certainly be extremely unpopular”

line 24-26

So the author does indeed use the word “unpopular”, but that doesn’t tell us the author’s attitude. The author said it will be unpopular “since most affected citizens would probably feel that the benefits of using the Internet decidedly outweigh the risks.” “Unpopular,” then, is telling us how the affected citizens would feel rather than the author. “Draconian” on the other hand is the adjective used by the author to express the author’s own opinion on these measures.

Hope this helps!