PrepTest 154, Section 4, Question 2
Flores: The behavior of the character Gawain in(83 more words not shown)
The dialogue provides most support(10 more words not shown)
- AMalory's portrayal of(10 more words not shown)
- Bthe sources for(9 more words not shown)
- CGawain was portrayed(13 more words not shown)
- Dthe behavior of(10 more words not shown)
- Ethe sources for(12 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Why does Gawain keep switching between hero and criminal?
Flores has an explanation. Malory combined older sources from different eras, and those sources gave Gawain different roles. Put those versions together and you could end up with a character whose behavior seems inconsistent. I can see how that might happen.
Piro draws our attention to something else: look at what is happening when Gawain behaves each way. During a crisis, he acts heroically. During stable periods, he behaves criminally. That gives the changes a pattern. Different circumstances could explain why the same character acts differently.
What we’re looking for
For the disagreement question, I'd initially look for something about why Gawain's behavior changes. But be careful about how far apart the speakers are. Piro allows that the different sources might account for the variation. Piro's response is that the variation also makes sense when we look at the situations within Malory's story. Let's see which answer captures that objection.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
This wasn't the wording I initially expected, but it captures the disagreement. Flores explicitly calls the portrayal incoherent: Gawain shifts between heroic and criminal behavior without an apparent reason. Piro supplies a reason within the story: his behavior changes with the circumstances.
So Piro is challenging the claim that the shifts don't make sense. The character can act differently in different situations without the portrayal being incoherent. We don't need Piro to deny that Malory used different sources to identify this disagreement.
- B
Flores says the sources came from different eras, and Piro explicitly allows that their different dates might explain the variation. Piro doesn't say the sources all came from the same era. There is no opposing position here.
- C
Neither speaker denies that Gawain was heroic in some earlier stories. Flores's account concerns changing roles across sources; Piro's objection concerns the pattern of behavior in Malory's work. Even if both accepted this fact about the earlier stories, they could still disagree about whether Malory's portrayal makes sense.
- D
They agree that Gawain alternates between heroic and criminal behavior. Piro even tells us when each kind occurs. The dispute concerns how to understand those changes, not whether they happen. An answer describing shared ground cannot identify their disagreement.
- E
This describes the variation among the sources that Flores uses as an explanation. Piro leaves that explanation possible and then points to the circumstances within Malory's story. We aren't given a denial that the earlier sources assign Gawain significantly different roles.
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