Common Core High School ELA Question of the Day
Test your knowledge with a hand-picked multiple-choice question.
Before we release the report, we must calibrate our skepticism, not cap it. An instrument poorly tuned produces noise disguised as music; inquiry, likewise, can turn dogmatic when its dials are welded in place. The data are a chorus, not a verdict: some voices carry, some hum, a few are out of key yet indispensable to the harmony. Outliers do not shout; they whisper in the margins, asking for a microphone rather than a megaphone. Precision is frugal, not stingy; it spends attention where it yields clarity. I resist the euphoric synonymy of "proof" and "comfort." Proof can unsettle. Let us resist the obstinate comfort of certainty and choose the steadfast discipline of revision. To colleagues who say "trim the doubt," I answer: refine it. Like a lens, skepticism must focus, not darken. Our obligation is neither to entertain every hypothesis nor to punish them, but to weigh them with tempered hands.
How does the author's choice of the verb "calibrate" (instead of "reduce") shape the meaning and tone?