A question about two texts tests how one author would judge an underlined claim in the other. Read the question to find who answers whom, then sum up the claim and its reason. Ask what the responding text accepts, challenges, or adds. Use that evidence to name the stance: reject means disagree, qualify means accept with limits, and extend means take further. A response needs the author’s own reason, not only a matching stance, and must stay within what the text supports.
Hints
- Hint 1
Put the underlined conclusion in a few words. It’s the claim Text 2’s author is being asked to judge.
- Hint 2
In Text 2’s opening sentence, look for what the author accepts and what the author distinguishes about the footnotes.
- Hint 3
Compare the strength of the underlined conclusion with the wording of Text 2’s final sentence. Decide how far Text 2’s response goes.
Step-by-step
Judge the claim through Text 2
Step 1Find the claim and its reason
Start with the underlined claim: the footnotes indicate that the essayist’s project is essentially a parody of academic prose. Text 2’s author is being asked to judge that claim. Why does Text 1 reach it? The notes sound scholarly and keep interrupting the essays, so Text 1 makes parody the essayist’s main purpose.
- Step 2
Separate resemblance from purpose
What does Text 2 accept, and where does it turn away? It agrees that the footnotes recall scholarly conventions, but says their function in the essays differs from that of academic citation. That separates what the notes look like from what they do. We can accept the similarity to scholarly writing without accepting Text 1’s explanation of the notes’ purpose.
- Step 3
Set the limit of the response
The ending cannot be explained solely as parody tells us how far the response goes. Is the author ruling out parody altogether, or challenging it as the whole explanation? The word solely means only, so Text 2 is putting limits on Text 1’s claim, showing that the claim leaves something out rather than proving that no parody exists. The notes make uncertainty visible, let the writer move off the main point, and bring readers into a conversation.
- Step 4
Match the broader role
Text 2’s phrase destabilizes linear exposition means the notes break up a straight, orderly argument. Which response recognizes that broader role? The choice about mere parody and a broader essayistic practice shows what Text 1’s reading leaves out: the notes reshape the argument and build a closer relationship with readers. Choice A.