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VR7. Author Questions – Homework
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Section Breakdown
| Your Score | Average of all Users | Percentile | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Author Questions - Tutoring (Medic Mind) |
Author Questions - Tutoring (Medic Mind)
Your score:
Average score:
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Now that we’ve gone through the theory on author questions, it’s time to see if you have learned what we have taught you – Let’s now tackle some questions together.
One of the most popular, enduring, and irritating myths about depression is that it means depressed people are sad all the time – and that by extension, people who are happy can’t be experiencing depression, even if they say they are. It is a skewed and horrible version of depression, and it’s one that further stigmatises the condition and isolates people with depression and related mental health conditions. This is because, put bluntly, depression doesn’t make you sad all the time – though the level of sadness a patient experiences can of course vary depending on the individual and the severity of depression.
When I’m having a depressive episode, I’m not walking around in tattered black clothes, weeping and wailing. I keep working and have friendly chats with the people I work with. Above all, I experience moments of happiness: a flash of delight as I’m walking on the beach with a friend and the sun is perfect and the breeze is just right; a warm, friendly, affectionate sensation at the touch of a friend, a hug at the end of an evening or a hand placed over mine as we lean forward to see something better.
Depression manifests differently in everyone and at different times. Various behaviours are not proof positive that someone is or isn’t depressed, and, as with any armchair diagnosis, insisting that someone is not actually depressed just because of a show of something other than deep, entrenched sadness is actively harmful.
(Adapted from The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/03/depression-doesnt-make-you-sad-all-the-time)
Explanation
This is an author opinion question. Remember to read the first and last two sentences of the passage, as it’s more important in this type of question that you understand the gist of the article overall. Find keywords and assess the statements individually, this is an easy place for the examiner to trick you with passage adjustments so read carefully!
Statement A is found in the final paragraph, where the idea that people are not depressed because they may show happiness is cited as not useful and an armchair diagnosis. It does not say that it is not useful because it is a diagnosis.
Statement B follows the same idea as statement A, that things the author says in the text are not necessarily their opinion. Read around the statement to find that they call this ‘a skewed and horrible view of depression’.
Statement C sounds a little like an extreme, without any softening words such as ‘often’. However, in opinion pieces extremes become a little more likely to be true because they are an opinion, not a fact, and opinions are often less tempered than facts. Here, in the final paragraph, the author says that ‘… as with any armchair diagnosis… is actively harmful’ – so they do believe these are not useful.
Statement D is a direct contradiction with the text, which states that ‘depression manifests differently’, so is an easy statement to discount. However, there are no obvious keywords because the adjectives are not found in the text. Therefore, this would be a case in which you cannot find the adjectives and have to decide to move on or search for synonyms.
Common trap!
In opinion pieces, authors may quote the opposite opinion to theirs in context, to acknowledge it but not claim it. For instance, ‘one of the most irritating myths about depression (is that people are sad all the time)’. Just because you see this in the text, does not mean that the author thinks it!