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Difficulty: HardWriter's Purpose, Tone, Mood, and Attitude

Read the passage below carefully and answer the question that follows.

The municipal council’s latest blueprint for traffic management is a masterclass in performative modernism. With grand declarations of curbing emissions, city officials have replaced key thoroughfares with pedestrian plazas, effectively funneling heavy commuter traffic into narrow residential lanes. While councilors applaud themselves in press briefings for 'reimagining urban movement,' residents now spend twice as long idling in gridlock beneath clouds of exhaust. This brilliant strategy apparently assumes that if motor vehicles are rendered completely stationary, carbon statistics will look remarkably clean on paper. One can only marvel at such visionary planning.

What is the writer's overall attitude toward the municipal council's traffic management blueprint?

  1. Sardonic and disdainfulAnswer
  2. B
    Frustrated and despairing
  3. C
    Enthusiastic and laudatory
  4. D
    Objective and analytical

Answer

The writer's attitude is sardonic and disdainful.
The correct answer accurately reflects the writer's use of sarcasm and irony. Phrases such as 'brilliant strategy' and 'marvel at such visionary planning' are used mockingly in direct contrast to the negative reality described—where traffic gridlock and emissions have worsened. This deliberate contrast between surface praise and actual condemnation reveals a sardonic and disdainful attitude.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the passage for verbal irony and tone markers.
Phrases like 'masterclass in performative modernism', 'brilliant strategy', and 'marvel at such visionary planning' contrast directly with described negative outcomes like doubling gridlock and exhaust fumes.
When a writer praises an outcome using complimentary words while simultaneously demonstrating that the outcome is disastrous, the writer is employing sarcasm (verbal irony).
2
Distinguish the author's tone from reader mood and literal word meanings.
The author maintains a mock-complimentary, sarcastic stance rather than expressing personal emotional despair or genuine praise.
Identifying a writer's attitude requires looking at how language is deployed rhetorically rather than taking ironical statements literally or projecting reader emotional reactions onto the writer.
3
Select the descriptor that accurately synthesizes the mocking criticism.
The phrase 'Sardonic and disdainful' precisely captures the author's mocking contempt for the council's policy.
Sardonic means grimly mocking or cynical, which matches the writer's ironic critique of the council's self-applause.

Key Concept

Identifying Writer's Tone and Attitude through Verbal Irony and Rhetorical Devices
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Topics

Writer's Purpose, Tone, Mood, and Attitude

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