Worked examples
Two examples
Example 1
A passage written for this example
Which word in the passage shows most clearly whose side the writer is on?A. 1817In 1817, Governor DeWitt Clinton talked New York State into a scheme to dig a ditch 363 miles long, from the Hudson River to Lake Erie, through forest and swamp. Much of it would be dug by hand. The state borrowed millions of dollars to pay for it. Critics called the project “Clinton’s Ditch,” and many expected the money to be lost.
B. scheme
C. Hudson
D. miles
- Skills Quiz 8: each word votes. Some words only name or measure. Others carry a charge: they make the reader feel for or against something.
- Test each choice. Ask: could a writer on the other side use this same word?
- A, 1817, is a year. Anyone on any side would write it. It is a fact, not a vote.
- C, Hudson, is the name of a river. D, miles, is a unit of measure. Neither takes a side.
- B, scheme. A plan can be called a plan, a project, or a scheme. A scheme is a plan that is sneaky or foolish. A supporter of the canal would never call it a scheme. The word votes against the canal.
- Notice the other charged words that lean the same way: Clinton “talked the state into” it, and “a ditch.” And notice what the passage leaves out: that the canal, when it opened in 1825, became a great success. The silence is part of the lean.
- None of the facts in the passage is false. Bias is not lying. The lean is in the words chosen and the facts left out.
Answer: B
Example 2
1. The council slashed the library budget.
2. The council trimmed the library budget.
3. The council cut the library budget by 5 percent.Three reports describe the same vote. Which report is the most neutral?A. Sentence 1
B. Sentence 2
C. Sentence 3
D. All three are equally neutral.
2. The council trimmed the library budget.
3. The council cut the library budget by 5 percent.Three reports describe the same vote. Which report is the most neutral?A. Sentence 1
B. Sentence 2
C. Sentence 3
D. All three are equally neutral.
- The facts are the same in all three: the council made the library budget smaller. Only the verb changes. So look at the verbs.
- Slashed means cut with a violent sweep, as with a blade. It makes the cut sound brutal. A writer who uses it is against the cut.
- Trimmed is what you do to a hedge or a beard: a small, careful, tidy cut. It makes the cut sound harmless. A writer who uses it is on the council’s side.
- Cut by 5 percent says what happened and how much, with no feeling attached. A reader can judge for herself whether 5 percent is a lot.
- So sentence 3 is the most neutral. D is the trap for a hurried reader: the three sentences share the same facts, but two of them vote.
- On the test, a question may ask which word a writer on one side would use. Now you can work it out: name the charge each word carries.
Answer: C
Where this is taught: Skills Quiz 8, Point of view and bias: First, the idea · Skills Quiz 8: the worked example · Skills Diagnostic, Part 8
In your Kaplan book: Unit 3, Chapter 1, Lesson 3: Analyze Author's Purpose and Point of View · Map of the Terrain, topic 8: Point of view, purpose, and bias
The drill
Ten questions
How many:
Read what is in the box first. Then tap your answer; a few questions ask you to choose words from a drop-down instead, the way the GED test does. Press Check my answers at the bottom.Read what is in the box first. Circle your answer; where there are brackets, circle the choice that fits. The answer key, with the reasoning, is on the last page.