<p>It's only one question, and it's in the first paragraph only, but, if anyone needs the rest, I've posted it here anyway:</p>
<p>This passage is adapted from a novel about an archaeologist on a dig in the Yucat</p>
<p>Look at lines 40-41. She suspected that the reporter would want something positive about archaeologists to report, something “about romance or adventure” but instead she calls archaeologists “no better than scavengers”.</p>
<p>She also points out that the reporter was “elegantly groomed young woman who had been sent by a popular magazine to write a short article on my work”. </p>
<p>So, to say something negative about her own profession when being interviewed by a magazine that many people read, it will give many of those readers a bad impression of the field.</p>
<p>Another clue is that she said “I gave that reporter trouble, I know. I talked about dirt and potsherds* when she wanted to hear about romance and adventure.” </p>
<p>Also, she definitely does not view her job as disdain, in the rest of the passage it’s clear she’s very dedicated to her fieldwork and finds it “gratifying”.</p>
<p>thanks Fizzix for your lucid explanation! I have another question in another passage (sorry!) so if you or anyone else can answer it, then I’d be very grateful:</p>
<p>Edmund Wilson (1895-1972), the famous literary critic, had a list of everything he wouldn’t do: make statements for publicity purposes, give interviews, autograph books for strangers, supply personal information about himself, and
50 so on. One of the things I personally find most impressive about his list is that everything Wilson clearly states he will not do, I have now done, and more than once, and, like the young person in the ice cream commercial sitting on the couch with an empty carton, am likely to do again
55 and again.
I tell myself that I do these various things to acquire more readers. After all, one of the reasons I write, apart from pleasure in working out the aesthetic problems and moral questions presented by my subjects and in my
60 stories, is to find the best readers. But I have now come to think that writing away quietly isn’t sufficient in a culture dominated by the boisterous spirit of celebrity. In an increasingly noisy cultural scene, with many voices competing for attention, one feels—perhaps incorrectly
65 but nonetheless insistently—the need to make one’s own small stir, however pathetic. So, on occasion, I have gone about tooting my own little paper horn, doing book tours, submitting to the comically pompous self-importance of interviews, and doing so many of the other things that
70 Edmund Wilson didn’t think twice about refusing to do.
“You’re slightly famous, aren’t you, Grandpa?” my granddaughter once said to me. “I am slightly famous, Annabelle,” I replied, “except no one quite knows who I am.” This hasn’t changed much over the years. The only
75 large, lumpy kind of big-time celebrity available, outside movie celebrity, is to be had through appearing on television. I had the merest inkling of this fame when I was walking along the street one sunny morning,'and a stranger pointed a long index finger at me, hesitated, and finally,
80 the shock of recognition lighting up his face, yelled, “TV!”
“Every time I think I’m famous,” the composer Virgil Thomson said, “I have only to go out into the world.” So ought it probably to remain for writers, musicians, and visual artists who prefer to consider
85 themselves serious. The best definition of celebrity I’ve yet come across holds that you are celebrated, indeed famous, only when a deranged person imagines he is you. It’s especially pleasing that the penetrating and prolific author of this remark happens to go by the name of
90 Anonymous.</p>
<p>In line 67, the author of Passage 2 refers to himself as blowing a horn in order to depict himself as</p>
<p>(A) a fiercely determined writer
(B) a contented amateur musician
(C) an overly eager television fan
(D) a mildly ridiculous figure
(E) a shamelessly conceited person</p>
<p>The answer is (D). I can’t deduce from the passage that the author says that he’s mildly ridiculous. I got hanged up between (A) and (D), and since they both sounded wrong to me, I left the question :(</p>
<p>… the need to make one’s own small stir, however pathetic …</p>
<p>Doesn’t “pathetic” suggest “mildly ridiculous”?</p>
<p>In an increasingly noisy cultural scene, with many voices competing for attention, one feels—perhaps incorrectly
65 but nonetheless insistently—the need to make one’s own small stir, however pathetic. So, on occasion, I have gone about tooting my own little paper horn, doing book tours, submitting to the comically pompous self-importance of interviews, and doing so many of the other things that
70 Edmund Wilson didn’t think twice about refusing to do.</p>
<p>Alright. So a writer, someone who is supposed to be sophisticated and intelligent, depicts his efforts of publicizing himself as someone tooting a paper horn to get attention. Edmund Wilson never considered even doing such a thing.
Therefore, it can be concluded that what the author does is pathetic. Something only an imbecile with no integrity would think of doing or “a mildly ridiculous figure.” He’s mocking himself and his actions.</p>
<p>Also, jasonjackson789, where do you get your passages from? Do you type them out yourself over here, or do you copy-paste them from certain online sources?</p>
<p>Thanks fogcity and SirWanksalot! Regarding your question SirWanksalot, I would have broken my fingers trying to type all this! I copy-paste from the internet 
Thanks again for your help!</p>
<p>@Fat_Nerd , however, I thought that because the keyword “comically pompous” depicts the same nature of which the narrator “tooted his own horn”, that he would be conceited? That is why I chose e. And the fact that he knows it’s wrong and yet he still does it shows that he is shameless as well. I understand that mildly ridiculous figure works as well in this situation, and i narrowed it down to both of them, and i ultimately chose the wrong option. Why is it that e is not correct?</p>
<p>Edit: I just realized this post is 2 years old, I hope that reviving this post is not against the rules of this forum. Sorry about that!</p>