What survived the festival
Locating a disagreement that is about a word rather than about the facts.
Paired texts
Text 1: The lantern festival survived because it changed. When the fire regulations came in, the guild replaced the candles with LED units and the procession went ahead as it always had. A tradition that cannot bend does not endure; it simply stops.
Text 2: What went ahead was the procession. The lanterns had been made each year by families who kept the paper-and-candle method between them, and the LED units are bought in. The festival looks as it did and is made by nobody. I am not sure that is the same thing as surviving, and I am not sure it is not.
Answers in order, explanations withheld, and a report on where the chain broke.
- 37.1Words in contextStandard
As used in Text 1, "bend" most nearly means
- Aadapt
- Bcurve physically
- Csubmit against its will
- Dweaken
Show the answer and reasoningHide the reasoning
adapt
The sentence sets bending against stopping, and what the guild did was change its method to keep going. The physical sense cannot apply to a tradition, and submission or weakening would make Text 1 critical of a change it is defending.
- 37.2Text structure and purposeStandard
Builds on: Question 1. If "bend" is read as adapting, Text 1 has made a claim about change preserving a thing — and Text 2's last sentence is hesitating over exactly that claim rather than over a fact.
What does the final sentence of Text 2 accomplish?
- AIt withdraws the objection the paragraph has just made.
- BIt declines to settle the question the paragraph has opened.
- CIt signals agreement with Text 1 after all.
- DIt accuses the guild of misleading the public.
Show the answer and reasoningHide the reasoning
It declines to settle the question the paragraph has opened.
"I am not sure that is... and I am not sure it is not" states both directions and commits to neither. That is different from withdrawing the objection: the objection stands, and the writer is saying they cannot tell what follows from it.
- 37.3Cross-text connectionsChallenge
Builds on: Question 2 established that Text 2 is hesitating over a claim rather than disputing an event, which is what rules out the first choice here.
The two texts disagree most nearly about
- Awhether the procession took place after the regulations.
- Bwhether the fire regulations were justified.
- Cwhat has to continue for a tradition to count as surviving.
- Dwhether LED lanterns are brighter than candles.
Show the answer and reasoningHide the reasoning
what has to continue for a tradition to count as surviving.
Both writers agree the procession happened and that the lanterns are now bought in. Text 1 treats the procession as the tradition; Text 2 treats the making of the lanterns as at least part of it. Nothing factual separates them.
- 37.4Cross-text connectionsChallenge
Builds on: Question 3. Once the disagreement is located in what must continue, the evidence that would settle it follows directly — which is why getting question 3 wrong makes this one a guess.
Which finding would the author of Text 2 most likely accept as the festival surviving in the sense they care about?
- AAttendance rising above its level before the regulations.
- BThe procession running every year for a further decade.
- CFamilies making the lanterns themselves again, by whatever method the rules allow.
- DThe guild publishing a history of the paper-and-candle method.
Show the answer and reasoningHide the reasoning
Families making the lanterns themselves again, by whatever method the rules allow.
Text 2's complaint is that the festival "is made by nobody", so what would answer it is the making returning — and the phrase "by whatever method the rules allow" shows the objection was never about candles. A longer run of processions is precisely what Text 2 says is not enough, and a written history records the practice instead of resuming it.