The author’s tone towards Guy’s biography of… | GMAT Sprint

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RC · Reading Comprehension

705-805

Short Passage - Humanities

Reading Passage

Both Darkly Comic and Tragic deeply, Guy's biography of the 12th Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket Sir, is a Portrait of a saint with Plenty of Shadows. Does it Diminish Becket for us to know that this future martyr in a hair shirt (clothing worn by ascetics) also made sure to keep a fine silk robe handy for his return to Canterbury, a stately progress one chronicler compared to Christ's entry into Jerusalem? That his abstemious diet was partly the result of a lifelong susceptibility to chronic, and debilitating, indigestion? That one of his oldest and closest friends would have found his canonization "utterly absurd"? Only if we prefer the black-and-white certainties of hagiography to the convincingly human portrayal of a charismatic, contradictory individual who was, as Guy puts it, "as prickly as he was smooth... a man with the habits of a hedgehog.

The author’s tone towards Guy’s biography of Becket can best be described as

Answer Choices

Correct answer marked below

apologetic

neutral

ambivalent

sardonic

appreciative

Correct

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What this question tests

What it tests

Your ability to understand a passage, its structure, and what the author is really saying. At the 705-805 level, accuracy and speed both matter.

Common trap

Answering from memory or outside knowledge instead of strictly from the passage.