A question about two texts tests how one author would respond to a factual claim in another text. Read the question to find who answers whom and the claim being judged. Put that claim and the responding author’s evidence in a few words so you can compare them. Then name the response: say the claim is wrong, add a limit, or apply it to another case. The right response isn’t enough if a choice adds a reason the responding author never gives.
Hints
- Hint 1
In Text 1, look for what Diaz calls the first. Is she talking about sending messages or about keeping a dependable link?
- Hint 2
Check what Queen Victoria’s greeting proves. How does that evidence relate to the exact achievement Diaz calls the first?
Step-by-step
Test the claim with Mills’s evidence
Step 1Find the claim Mills must answer
Start with the author of Text 2 in the question: Mills must answer Diaz’s claim. What achievement does Diaz call the first? She describes the 1866 cable as the first transatlantic telegraph cable to successfully transmit messages. The next sentence also praises its dependable link, but the claim we must test is which cable first sent messages.
- Step 2
See what the earlier cable did
Does Mills deny that the 1866 cable worked well? He says it indeed proved durable, but adds that an earlier cable completed in 1858 also carried messages across the Atlantic. Queen Victoria’s greeting shows that the earlier line actually sent a message, even though it lasted only weeks. So the 1858 cable sent messages without becoming a lasting link.
- Step 3
Match the response and its reason
How would Mills answer Diaz’s claim? He would reject the claim about which cable was first, since the earlier line did successfully transmit messages. The choice beginning An 1858 cable gives that response for Mills’s own reason. Choice C.