Reading Comprehension

Because we have so deeply interiorized writing, we find it difficult to
consider writing to be an alien technology, as we commonly assume
printing and the computer to be. Most people are surprised to learn that
essentially the same objections commonly urged today against computers
were urged by Plato in the Phaedrus, against writing.
Writing, Plato has Socrates say, is inhuman, pretending to establish
outside the mind what in reality can be only in the mind. Secondly,
Plato's Socrates urges, writing destroys memory. Those who use writing
will become forgetful, relying on external resource for what they lack in
internal resources. Thirdly, a written text is basically unresponsive,
whereas real speech and thought always exist essentially in a context of
give-and-take between real persons.
Without writing, words as such have no visual presence, even when
the objects they represent are visual. Thus, for most literates, to think of
words as totally disassociated from writing is psychologically threatening,
for literates' sense of control over language is closely tied to the visual
transformations of language. Writing makes "•words"– appear similar to
things because we think of words as the visible marks signalling words to
decoders, and we have an inability to represent to our minds a heritage
of verbally organized materials except as some variant of writing. A
literate person, asked to think of the word "•nevertheless"– will normally
have some image of the spelled-out word and be quite unable to think of
the word without adverting to the lettering. Thus the thought processes
of functionally literate human beings do not grow out of simply natural
powers but out of these powers as structured by the technology of
writing.
Without writing, human consciousness cannot achieve its fuller
potentials, cannot produce other beautiful and powerful creations.
Literacy is absolutely necessary for the development not only of science,
but also of history, philosophy, explicative understanding of literature and
of any art, and indeed for the explanation of language (including oral
speech) itself. Literate users of a grapholect such as standard English
have access to vocabularies hundreds of times larger than any oral
language can manage. Thus, in many ways, writing heightens
consciousness. Technology, properly interiorized, does not degrade
human life but enhances it.
In the total absence of any writing, there is nothing outside the
writer, no text, to enable him or her to produce the same line of thought
again or even verify whether he has done so or not. In primary oral
culture, to solve effectively the problem of retaining and retrieving
carefully articulated thought, you have to do your thinking in mnemonic
patterns, shaped for ready oral recurrence. A judge in an oral culture is
often called upon to articulate sets of relevant proverbs out of which he
can produce equitable decisions in the cases under formal litigation under
him. The more sophisticated orally patterned thought is, the more it is
likely to be marked by set expressions skilfully used. Among the ancient
Greeks, Hesiod, who was intermediate between oral Homeric Greece and fully developed Greek literacy, delivered quasiphilosophic material in the formulaic verse forms from which he had emerged.


The author refers to Plato in the first and second paragraphs. He brings the
philosopher up primarily in order to:
A. provide an example of literate Greek philosophy.
B. suggest the possible disadvantages of writing.
C. illustrate common misconceptions about writing.
D. define the differences between writing and computer technology.
E. suggest possible benefits of writing

[spoiler] OA is B
In the first glance i thought answer is B. However i read the first paragraph again and changed my answer to C. After reading the last line of first para I felt that: The author is using example of Pluto to say that, there were some objections against writing as they are now for technology, then he goes on to explain them in detail. What I thought is that author is trying to say that there were some misconceptions about writings and they are not true as in the case of technology. Ofcourse as per OA my reasoning is flawed, But if para 2 is read in the context of para 1(last lines of para 1) i feel C is correct. can someone help me out here?[/spoiler]

pkonduri wrote:Because we have so deeply interiorized writing, we find it difficult to
consider writing to be an alien technology, as we commonly assume
printing and the computer to be. Most people are surprised to learn that
essentially the same objections commonly urged today against computers
were urged by Plato in the Phaedrus, against writing.
Writing, Plato has Socrates say, is inhuman, pretending to establish
outside the mind what in reality can be only in the mind. Secondly,
Plato's Socrates urges, writing destroys memory. Those who use writing
will become forgetful, relying on external resource for what they lack in
internal resources. Thirdly, a written text is basically unresponsive,
whereas real speech and thought always exist essentially in a context of
give-and-take between real persons.
Without writing, words as such have no visual presence, even when
the objects they represent are visual. Thus, for most literates, to think of
words as totally disassociated from writing is psychologically threatening,
for literates' sense of control over language is closely tied to the visual
transformations of language. Writing makes "•words"– appear similar to
things because we think of words as the visible marks signalling words to
decoders, and we have an inability to represent to our minds a heritage
of verbally organized materials except as some variant of writing. A
literate person, asked to think of the word "•nevertheless"– will normally
have some image of the spelled-out word and be quite unable to think of
the word without adverting to the lettering. Thus the thought processes
of functionally literate human beings do not grow out of simply natural
powers but out of these powers as structured by the technology of
writing.
Without writing, human consciousness cannot achieve its fuller
potentials, cannot produce other beautiful and powerful creations.
Literacy is absolutely necessary for the development not only of science,
but also of history, philosophy, explicative understanding of literature and
of any art, and indeed for the explanation of language (including oral
speech) itself. Literate users of a grapholect such as standard English
have access to vocabularies hundreds of times larger than any oral
language can manage. Thus, in many ways, writing heightens
consciousness. Technology, properly interiorized, does not degrade
human life but enhances it.
In the total absence of any writing, there is nothing outside the
writer, no text, to enable him or her to produce the same line of thought
again or even verify whether he has done so or not. In primary oral
culture, to solve effectively the problem of retaining and retrieving
carefully articulated thought, you have to do your thinking in mnemonic
patterns, shaped for ready oral recurrence. A judge in an oral culture is
often called upon to articulate sets of relevant proverbs out of which he
can produce equitable decisions in the cases under formal litigation under
him. The more sophisticated orally patterned thought is, the more it is
likely to be marked by set expressions skilfully used. Among the ancient
Greeks, Hesiod, who was intermediate between oral Homeric Greece and fully developed Greek literacy, delivered quasiphilosophic material in the formulaic verse forms from which he had emerged.


The author refers to Plato in the first and second paragraphs. He brings the
philosopher up primarily in order to:
A. provide an example of literate Greek philosophy.
B. suggest the possible disadvantages of writing.
C. illustrate common misconceptions about writing.
D. define the differences between writing and computer technology.
E. suggest possible benefits of writing

[spoiler] OA is B
In the first glance i thought answer is B. However i read the first paragraph again and changed my answer to C. After reading the last line of first para I felt that: The author is using example of Pluto to say that, there were some objections against writing as they are now for technology, then he goes on to explain them in detail. What I thought is that author is trying to say that there were some misconceptions about writings and they are not true as in the case of technology. Ofcourse as per OA my reasoning is flawed, But if para 2 is read in the context of para 1(last lines of para 1) i feel C is correct. can someone help me out here?[/spoiler]

My only real problem with C (and the reason for elimination) is the word "common" miscnceptions. Plato's misconceptions about writing are Plato's own 'issues' - they can hardly be considered common if they are limited to one slightly unbalanced ancient greek philospher.

The text tricks you into choosing C in two ways:

1) It "objections mentions commonly urged today" to plant the idea of a common misconception in your head. However, the above phrase relates to computers, not to writing. What is common today about A does not mean that the same thing is common TODAY about B, or even that it was common back in ancient Greece.

2) The last three sentences of the first paragraph all bring Plato's own opinion, expressed by Socrates, not a general misconception, but the trick is that while the first two points mention this fact, the last point does not mention Socrates - giving the illusion that it is a general misconception. Ideall, you would not even be reading these sentences when answering this question, so as not to get confused - just label them as "Plato's three issues/problems with writing", but there's really no need to really dive in and see what those problems are.

Thanks Geva for your time. From now after picking the answer I will do some checks to be sure.
1) Is the answer generalized without enough evidence
2) Vague
3) Any exaggerations

Actually when I solve questions in timed mode, I somehow get carried away and choose answer options. I simply forget some checks and balances. Does it happen with many people out here or am I loosing focus?

Hey,
Earlier i confidently chose B but after reading pkondri's reply i realized that C is close.

@Geva: Do we get such close options on GMAT & what if the word 'common' wasnt there in option C

vikram4689 wrote:Hey,
Earlier i confidently chose B but after reading pkondri's reply i realized that C is close.

@Geva: Do we get such close options on GMAT & what if the word 'common' wasnt there in option C

It's possible. The two main defenses here are a) not read too much of the passage, unless you really have to and b) Be aggressive in your elimination. Look for a reason why C is wrong, not only why B is right.

Thanks, i will add that to error log to keep a check on myself

What if the word 'common ' wasnt in option C

For the same PARA & for below question:

4. The passage is primarily concerned with
A. criticising those who speak against "—writing'
B. emphasising the importance of writing
C. assert that writing and consciousness are independent of each other
D. documenting the negative effects of writing
E. discussing how writing has influenced human consciousness

Can someone let me know why B is not correct? while solving I thought B & E are very close but went with B because it sounded more correct than E. OA is E.
If we are stuck with two similar choices how to select the final answer ?