StudyPebble

SAT: Where Two Texts Disagree

Some paired passage questions ask what both authors would agree about, or what they would disagree about. The correct answer must be a point that both texts actually address. Choices about issues only one author raised are the standard trap, because they are usually true of that one author.

The rule

A point of agreement or disagreement must be something both texts actually address, with a sentence you can point to in each.

Start by listing what each text is about, not just what it concludes. If Text 1 discusses whether a species migrated earlier than expected and Text 2 discusses whether the dating method is reliable, then their shared ground is narrow. Anything outside that overlap cannot be a point of agreement or disagreement, because one author never spoke to it.

For agreement questions, look for a fact or premise both texts accept even when their conclusions differ. Two authors who disagree about what caused a decline may both accept that the decline happened. That shared premise is typically the answer, and it can feel too obvious, which is why students skip past it.

For disagreement questions, find the one claim where the texts make opposite statements about the same thing. Write both positions down side by side. If you cannot state each author's position on the point named in the choice, that choice is not the answer, because a disagreement requires two stated positions.

The most frequent wrong answer describes something only one author said. It will be accurate about that author and simply silent regarding the other. Before selecting any choice, confirm you can point to a sentence in each text that addresses it. Silence is not agreement and it is not disagreement.

The second frequent wrong answer overstates the gap. Two authors can emphasize different factors without contradicting each other, and a choice claiming one author denies what the other asserts is often stronger than the texts support. As with all cross-text questions, match the degree of the disagreement, not just its existence.

The trap

Selecting a statement that is true of one author while the other text never addresses it at all.

Try it

Try one
Real question

Text 1: Literary critic Gerald Ashworth praises the 1930s novels of Winifred Slade for their refusal of plot. Nothing happens in them, he writes, and that is their achievement: they render ordinary duration without the distortion that incident imposes. Ashworth made the case in a 1951 essay that set Slade against the plot-driven realism of her contemporaries, and later critics largely repeated it. Text 2: Critic Nadira Bose reads the same novels closely, tabulating every reported action sentence by sentence, and counts, in one of them, a death, a bankruptcy, and a departure. What is unusual, she argues, is not the absence of events but their placement: each is reported in a subordinate clause while the main clause describes weather or a meal. The effect, she concludes, is produced by grammar rather than by what Slade chose to leave out.

Based on the texts, how would Bose most likely respond to Ashworth's description of Slade's novels?

Text 1 Historian Perpetua Ashworth argues that enclosing open fields raised English agricultural output. Parishes enclosed before 1780 record higher yields per acre in the following decades than parishes that remained open, and enclosure allowed a single owner to drain and re-sow without agreement from neighbors. She calls enclosure the engine of the agricultural revolution. Text 2 Historian Ikechukwu Braun does not dispute the yield figures. He observes that the parishes enclosed earliest were those with heavy clay soils, where drainage had the most to offer, and that enclosure of light upland soils after 1800 produced no yield advantage at all. Enclosure removed an obstacle. Whether removing it mattered depended on what the ground could do once it was removed. The same act had different effects on different ground.

Based on the texts, how would Braun most likely respond to the argument presented in Text 1?

  • A) By disputing the yield figures Ashworth cites for the English parishes that were enclosed before 1780.
  • B) By arguing that upland parishes would have raised their yields if they had been enclosed before 1780.
  • C) By concluding that enclosure made no difference to English agricultural output in any period at all.
  • D) By agreeing that enclosure raised yields on some soils while denying that it did so on others. ✓

Why: Braun accepts the figures and ties the benefit to soil: clay parishes gained from drainage, while enclosure of "light upland soils after 1800 produced no yield advantage at all." Choice A rejects evidence he grants. Choice C denies an effect he concedes on clay. Choice B treats the early date as the operative factor, when his point is that early enclosure marks heavy soil. By disputing the yield figures Ashworth cites for the English parishes that were enclosed before 1780. is wrong because he "does not dispute the yield figures". By concluding that enclosure made no difference to English agricultural output in any period at all. is wrong because he says enclosure "removed an obstacle," which mattered on clay. By arguing that upland parishes would have raised their yields if they had been enclosed before 1780. reverses his point; timing is a proxy for soil, not the cause.

Practice more of these free

Questions students ask

How do I find the point of disagreement quickly?

Summarize each text's main claim in one sentence and set them beside each other. The disagreement usually lies at the point where the two sentences make different assertions about the same subject. If they are about different subjects, look for a shared premise instead.

What if one author never mentions the topic in a choice?

Then that choice is wrong. You cannot infer a position from silence, and the test relies on students assuming an author would agree or disagree with something the text never raised.

Guides that cover this

More on cross-text connections