The passage provides the most evidence for the claim that the author has a negative attitude toward which one of the ...

Naz on December 10, 2014

I understand where you confusion lies with this problem. All three answer choices--A, D, and E--discuss negative things. However, the call to action is which of the answer choices is there the most evidence for to show that the AUTHOR has a negative attitude towards it? So, essentially, this is a tone question.

There are various negative things that the author describes and references in the passage. However, just because the author is describing a negative aspect, does not necessarily mean that the AUTHOR carries a negative attitude TOWARDS that aspect.

Answer choice (A) is referenced in lines 1-18. The author merely describes the fact that reforms occurred in 1982 and that "This decision has placed on provincial courts the enormous burden of interpreting and translating the necessarily general constitutional language specific to rulings (11-14)." Again, in the next sentence, the author merely describes what the results of these reforms were. Just because the results were negative, does not mean that the author herself holds a negative attitude towards the reforms.

Likewise, answer choice (D) is referenced in lines 31-39. This is a fact that is being described in the passage. It is a fact that it is difficult for aboriginal societies to provide legal documentation because these societies "often relied on oral tradition rather than written records, to support their claims (38-39)." We have no tone words to evidence how the author feels.

Answer choice (E) can be found in lines 47-63. On line 56, the author describes how she feels about the court's ruling, as opposed to merely describing what the court's ruling was: "Here, the provincial court's ruling was excessively conservative in its assessment of the current law;" this is a statement of opinion, rather than fact. The next word is: "Regrettably, (line 58)." This is an emotional word. The author "regrets" the consequences of the provincial court in 1984's definition of "ownership."

Thus, answer choice (E) has "The most evidence for the claim that the author has a negative attitude" towards it. Remember, we are being asked about tone, rather than being asked whether there were negative things referenced in the passage.

Hope that clears things up! Please let us know if you have any other questions.

avif on May 1, 2020

Thanks for the explanation. This section particularly gave me a lot of trouble and on the rest of the RC section I only got one wrong and on this passage I got four. There are a lot of small nuances that need to be focused on.