Author's Purpose, Tone, and Attitude
These questions ask why the author wrote the passage and how the author feels about the subject. Purpose is a verb (to inform, explain, persuade, analyze, describe, entertain, criticize); tone and attitude are precise adjectives supported by diction.
Purpose
Ask what the author wants the reader to think, feel, or do. A passage that presents evidence on one side of a policy debate is persuasive, even if the tone is calm and the facts are accurate. "To inform" is the most overused and most frequently wrong answer for argumentative passages.
Tone, mood, and the narrator problem
Tone is the author's attitude toward the subject and reader. Mood is the feeling the text creates in the reader. In literary passages, the narrator or a quoted character is not the author - a bitter character does not make a bitter author. Concession words ("admittedly," "to be sure") and hedges ("arguably," "if") shift tone and are frequently tested.
Precision matters
Distinguish admiring from fawning, skeptical from dismissive, nostalgic from regretful, earnest from solemn, detached from indifferent, wry from sarcastic. The right answer is the mildest word that fully accounts for the evidence.
Worked example
"The new subway cars gleam, the signs are legible, and the trains arrive on time - if you happen to travel between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., when the system runs at all." The tone is wryly skeptical. It is not enthusiastic, because the final clause undercuts every compliment, and it is not furious, because the criticism is delivered through understatement.
Traps that cost marks
- Confusing a sad topic with a sad tone.
- Attributing a quoted expert's opinion to the author.
- Choosing extreme tone words the passage never earns.
- Ignoring a tone shift in the final paragraph.