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Pet Peeves, continued
Jun. 4th, 2006 05:13 pmAuthors who put in a lot of work to be accurate in what they write about in some areas who then totally skip others.
I have been reading Blacklist by Sara Paretsky. In it, a couple of her characters are teenagers at an elite prep day school in Chicago. One of them is reading a book entitled "Differential Equations for Math SAT Students." Differential Equations, I guess, is designed to tell us how smart the girl is, but... no, you do not need Diffy Q's for the SATs - not for the regular SAT and not for the Subject tests (or Achievement tests or SAT II's or whatever you know them as). And Paretsky KNOWS it is "Advanced Calculus," as her P.I. refers to it as such in the book.
So, our crack Private Investigaror, V.I. Warshawsky, asks to see a yearbook for the Prep School and the very proud mom pulls one out from under the cash register. She goes through the class pictures, starting with the Seniors. Then she does the Juniors. There, she finds a picture of the character she is seeking who, it turns out, is a junior in the high school.
This is taking place in March. If there is a year book, then it has last year's Seniors, while those listed as Juniors are now Seniors. Further, the person she has identified as a Junior at this elite academic institution was late for Algebra that morning, according to the school - and when that observation is made to the student herself, she does not draw herself up and say "That's Algebra II!"
The yearbook for the current senior class would not be out in mid-March.
I have been reading Blacklist by Sara Paretsky. In it, a couple of her characters are teenagers at an elite prep day school in Chicago. One of them is reading a book entitled "Differential Equations for Math SAT Students." Differential Equations, I guess, is designed to tell us how smart the girl is, but... no, you do not need Diffy Q's for the SATs - not for the regular SAT and not for the Subject tests (or Achievement tests or SAT II's or whatever you know them as). And Paretsky KNOWS it is "Advanced Calculus," as her P.I. refers to it as such in the book.
So, our crack Private Investigaror, V.I. Warshawsky, asks to see a yearbook for the Prep School and the very proud mom pulls one out from under the cash register. She goes through the class pictures, starting with the Seniors. Then she does the Juniors. There, she finds a picture of the character she is seeking who, it turns out, is a junior in the high school.
This is taking place in March. If there is a year book, then it has last year's Seniors, while those listed as Juniors are now Seniors. Further, the person she has identified as a Junior at this elite academic institution was late for Algebra that morning, according to the school - and when that observation is made to the student herself, she does not draw herself up and say "That's Algebra II!"
The yearbook for the current senior class would not be out in mid-March.
