Introduction
We are grouping together two concepts in this lesson because CLT questions with mentions of “tone” are often equally about what is traditionally called style– that is, the way the author crafts his/her writing with a consistent vocabulary and sentence structure. Both elements can be found up in a CLT tone question: a focus on the author’s attitude toward the subject alongside different ways to use language and structure the sentence in a manner consistent with the passage as a whole.
Approach Question
An author writing for a scientific journal composes the sentence below. Should he leave the sentence as it is or opt for one of the three alternatives listed in the answer choices?
The experimenters observed a positive correlation between the amount of the enzyme and the presence of the substrate.
- NO CHANGE
- There was to be found by the observers, so to speak, a positively oriented correlation between enzyme amount and substrate presence.
- Those doing the experiment were overjoyed to discover a positive relationship between the enzyme’s quantity and the substrate.
- The people in the lab saw that the enzyme and substrate seemed to go together.
If you were writing for a scientific journal, how would you want your writing to sound? It would be a good idea to sound professional without coming off as pretentious or writing with hard-to-decipher prose. Technical language would be appropriate, given your audience; while avoiding unnecessary jargon, you would be justified in using words like “correlation” to describe experimental results.
With this in mind, we can note how each of the choices departs from the original “NO CHANGE” in one direction or the other. Choice B adds the unnecessary phrase “so to speak” and needlessly expands the word “positive” to “positively oriented.” It also contains an awkward, indirect introduction which is certainly not an improvement upon the simple “the experimenters observed …”
The next answer changes the neutral, descriptive tone by including the word “overjoyed.” This expression of emotion is unlikely to be appropriate for a scientific publication and, given an alternative that sounds more detached and objective, is an inferior answer. The final choice, while it might seem to have the virtue of conciseness, relaxes the language considerably so that the sentence sounds like a casual conversation. In the right passage, this sort of language might fit, but not in the formal environment of a scientific journal. The sentence should be left as it is; the answer is NO CHANGE.
Part 1: General Strategy
- Identify elements of tone as well as elements of style.
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Although an author’s tone can take on all sorts of nuance, we can boil down most tone questions to positive or negative connotation. Consider the difference between the following two sentences, both of which could be describing the same hike through the mountains:
- The breathtaking views filled me with awe and gratitude.
- The trip dragged on and the endless hills were a constant annoyance.
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Style, on the other hand, is bound up in an author’s vocabulary, sentence structure, use of literal versus figurative language, and level of formality (casual versus formal). Both of the following sentences describe the same scene, but the first is descriptive and poetic while the second is concise and straightforward.
- The stars glimmered like diamonds against the velvet evening sky.
- It was a clear night, and the stars were visible.
- Pay attention to word choice.
- The use of adjectives often conveys a positive or negative tone.
- Short, simple sentences usually convey directness and neutrality.
- Analyze sentence structure.
- Long, flowing sentences may be appropriate for literature passages and philosophical essays.
- Ancient authors are more likely to use long sentences than are more recent authors; follow the author’s style carefully.
- As always, context is king.
- Trace how the author treats his/her subject; is the overall attitude approving, critical, or neutral?
- Keep track of how much the author uses words unfamiliar to you as well as complicated phrasing. The writing on CLT passages tends to be consistent in style and tone.
Practice Passage
In this section, you’ll find an excerpt from John Calvin’s A Treatise on Relics, translated by Count Valerian Krasinsky and published in the public domain by The Gutenberg Project. We have included five Tone/Style questions to go with the passage.
Hero-worship is innate to human nature, and it is founded on some of our noblest feelings—gratitude, love, and admiration—but which, like all other feelings, when uncontrolled by principle and reason, may fall with ease into overstatement, and have bad results. It was by such an exaggeration of these noble feelings that Paganism filled the Olympus with gods and demigods–elevating to this rank men who have often deserved the gratitude of their fellow-creatures–by some signal services rendered to the community, or their admiration, by having performed some deeds which required a more than usual degree of mental and physical powers. The same cause obtained for the Christian martyrs the gratitude and admiration of their fellow-Christians, and finally converted them into a kind of demigods. This was more particularly the case when the church began to be corrupted by her compromise with Paganism, which having been baptized without being converted, rapidly introduced into the Christian church, not only many of its rites and ceremonies, but even its polytheism, with this difference, that the divinities of Greece and Rome were replaced by Christian saints, many of whom received the offices of their Pagan predecessors. The church in the beginning tolerated these abuses as a temporary evil, but was afterwards unable to remove them; they became so strong, particularly during the prevailing ignorance of the middle ages, that the church ended by legalizing, through her decrees, that at which she did nothing but wink at first. I shall endeavour to give my readers a rapid sketch of the rise, progress, and final establishment of the Pagan practices which not only continue to prevail in the Western as well as in the Eastern church, but have been of late, notwithstanding the boasted progress of intellect in our days, manifested in as bold as successful a manner.
Nothing, indeed, can be more deserving of our admiration than the conduct of the Christian martyrs, who happily submitted to being a martyr, inflicted by the most atrocious torments, rather than deny their faith even by the mere performance of an apparently insignificant rite of Paganism. Their persecutors were often affected by seeing examples of an heroic fortitude, such as they admired in a Scævola or a Regulus, displayed not only by men, but by women, and even children, and became converted to a faith which could inspire its confessors with such a devotion to its tenets. It has been justly said that the blood of the martyrs was the glory and the seed of the church, because the constancy of her confessors has, perhaps, given her more converts than the eloquence and learning of her doctors. It was, therefore, very natural that the memory of those noble champions of Christianity should be held in great veneration by their brethren in the faith. The bodies of the martyrs, or their remnants, were always, whenever it was possible, purchased from their judges or executioners, and decently buried by the Christians. The day on which the martyr had suffered was generally marked in the registers of his church, in order to commemorate this glorious event on its anniversaries. These commemorations usually consisted in the eulogy of the martyr, delivered in an assembly of the church, for the edification of the faithful, the strengthening of the weak, and the stimulating of the lukewarm, by setting before them the noble example of the above-mentioned martyr. It was very natural that the objects of the commemoration received on such an occasion the greatest praises, not unfrequently expressed in the most exaggerated terms, but there was no question about invoking the aid or intercession of the confessors whose example was thus held out for the imitation of the church.
We know from the Acts that neither St Stephen, the first Christian martyr, nor St James, who was killed by Herod, were invoked in any manner by the apostolic church, because, had this been the case, the inspired writer of this first record of the ancient church would not have omitted such an important circumstance, having mentioned facts of much lesser consequence. Had such a practice been in conformity with the apostolic doctrine, it would have certainly been brought forward in the epistles of St Paul, or in those of other apostles. We can see that the church fathers didn’t like this practice. The limits of this essay allow me not to adduce evidences of this fact, which may be abundantly drawn from the writings of those fathers, and I shall content myself with the following few but conclusive instances of this kind.
- may fall with ease into overstatement, and have bad results
A. NO CHANGE
B. may easily degenerate into the wildest exaggerations, and lead to the most dangerous consequences
C. can say things way too strongly so that terrible things happen
D. can be prone to hyperbole in such a way that in the end perilous things occur
The answer is B. With tone questions, it can be helpful to quickly eliminate the choices that sound too formal or informal, or too positive or too negative, and then closely examine the remaining alternatives. Choice C can be rejected for being both too informal (using the word “things” twice, as well as the phrase “way too strongly”). What about NO CHANGE? The first part of the sentence sounds like it comes from this passage, but Calvin generally uses more formal and descriptive language than the phrase “and have bad results.” That doesn’t seem to match.
To decide between the remaining two choices, we first have to ask whether strong wording like “wildest exaggerations” and “most dangerous consequences” can be justified; reading broader context is required. Although the wording sounds strong, Calvin goes on to talk about “such exaggeration” in the next sentence, and the previous clause talks about what happens when feelings are “uncontrolled by principle and reason.” So these phrases are not out of place with what surrounds them. Meanwhile, although “can be prone to hyperbole” seems to fit the author’s phrasing, the rest of the sentence becomes cluttered in its phrasing and makes the cause and effect less vivid and direct by simply claiming that “perilous things occur.” In context, Calvin is making a stronger cause-and-effect claim than that.
- The church in the beginning tolerated these abuses as a temporary evil, but was afterwards unable to remove them.
A. NO CHANGE
B. At the outset, the church embraced these abuses because it thought they would be transient, but in the end it proved incapable of removing the blot.
C. The church first said OK to such things that didn’t seem like they would last, but they did last.
D. From the beginning, the church has deplored this temporary evil, but in our days their permanence is undeniable.
The answer is A. Once again, choice C can be quickly removed; it’s hard to imagine John Calvin using the phrase “OK”! The wrong answers need to be assessed according to positive/negative tone and according to context. Reading before and after the sentence in question, we can see that the author is describing a slow progression during which the church allowed an undesirable practice to work its way into the church’s rites. Look at the main verbs ascribed to the church in the three remaining choices: “tolerated”, “embraced”, and “deplored”. “Embraced” is too positive; the picture is not of the enthusiastically adopting a practice but rather of allowing it to seep in gradually. Conversely, “deplored”, which means “strongly criticized,” is too negative, given the fact that the church apparently accepted the practice over the long term. “Tolerated” strikes the right balance between the positive and negative choices, and the rest of the sentence in which the word is found fits the author’s language from the rest of the passage.
- who happily submitted to being a martyr
A. NO CHANGE
B. who shrunk from the prospect of shame and death
C. who felt fine about dying for the Lord
D. who cheerfully submitted to an ignominious death
The answer is D. As in the last question, the wrong answer choices here are largely too negative or too positive. In context, Calvin is describing heroic acts of self-sacrifice, but it would be an exaggeration to say they were happy about the fact given the “atrocious torments” mentioned immediately following. Rather, these saints accepted martyrdom because the alternative was denying their faith, and that alternative was unacceptable to them. So the sentence with “happily” can be eliminated; that kind of breezy description is too positive and would trivialize the awful experience of sacrificing life itself and suffering intense pain.
On the other hand, these heroes cannot appropriately be described as those who “shrunk from” shame and death; Calvin is describing them as so willingly accepting death my martyrdom that it becomes tempting to venerate or worship such saints. Meanwhile, “felt fine about dying for the Lord” is far too informal for Calvin’s language, not to mention that “felt fine” would also trivialize how agonizing the experience was.
That leaves us with “who cheerfully submitted to an ignominious death.” If we eliminated the choice with “happily”, why should we accept one with “cheerfully”? There are two reasons. The first is that choice also calls the death “ignominious”, which means “deeply shaming,” so it captures better the agonizing difficulty of this choice. Secondly, there is a slight difference in meaning, particularly in older writing, between “happily” and “cheerfully”. Calvin means “cheerfully” not in the breezy sense that one feels happy, but rather that the attitude is one of lightness even in the midst of suffering because of confidence in the Lord’s goodness.
- It was very natural that the objects of the commemoration received on such an occasion the greatest praises.
A. NO CHANGE
B. Of course these people were praised!
C. I suppose that it was worthwhile and appropriate to commemorate the martyrs with a celebration.
D. There took place an enthusiastic celebration on behalf of these examples, who should obviously continue to be venerated in our day.
The answer is A. Having described the willing endurance of torment undertaken by faithful Christians, Calvin takes the next logical step by acknowledging how easy it can be to venerate or even worship such people. The sentence in question here expresses that sentiment. Choice B can be quickly rejected as too brief, informal, and emphatic. Also, given the general absence of the first person pronoun “I” in this passage, it is quite unlikely that the author would begin a sense here with “I suppose …” Finally, the choice that mentions an “enthusiastic celebration” might seem solid at first, for surely Calvin acknowledges that these saints’ sacrifice deserves celebration, but the rest of the sentence goes awry in suggesting that these saints should be venerated. The entire thrust of the passage, on the contrary, is that veneration goes too far and ventures into idolatry. So Choice D is too extremely positive. We need the original here (NO CHANGE) because it acknowledges in very positive terms the noteworthy sacrifice of the martyrs but allows space for the following argument about how the saints cannot, therefore, function as intercessors on behalf of living believers.
- We can see that the church fathers didn’t like this practice.
A. NO CHANGE
B. I find no strong evidence of any approval on the part of the church fathers for worshipping the dead or venerating anybody else.
C. Any suggestion that the church fathers approved of the practice of worshipping and venerating departed saints is from the deepest pit of hell.
D. There is also sufficient evidence that the fathers of the primitive church knew nothing of the invocation, or any other kind of worship, rendered to departed saints.
The answer is D. In this last paragraph, Calvin is advancing his argument by showing that neither the New Testament nor the earliest church fathers believed in intercession by the saints. The original answer from the passage bears all the marks of being too informal in language, so the answer is not NO CHANGE. Similarly, the answer with “I” and “anybody else” doesn’t seem to match Calvin’s style, so we can reject Choice B. The other two choices both have appropriately formal language that could match Calvin’s style, so we should look at the tone of the language. Choice C refers to this belief as coming “from the deepest pit of hell.” Although it is not impossible that Calvin thought this negatively about the practice and perhaps said so elsewhere, in this passage he generally uses language that it less extreme and emotion-laden. In any case, his goal in the context is to show that the earliest Christians didn’t hold this belief, and Choice C says nothing about that. That leaves us with the reasoned answer regarding “sufficient evidence,” which matches Calvin’s careful and logical approach throughout the passage.
For Reflection
- Rate the difficulty of CLT Tone/Style questions for you from 1 (no problem) to 5 (problem!). This will help you decide how much time to spend preparing for this passage.
- Do you understand the difference between tone and style? Make sure you have registered the fact that some questions will test both ideas in the same question.
- Take a moment to consider what kinds of writing would be naturally casual and what kinds would be naturally more formal. This will help you anticipate the style of a CLT passage once you’ve read its title.
