Logical reasoning PrepTest 104 · Section 4 · Question 23

Question prompt

Much of today's literature Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: E

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Argument or Facts

Facts

Valid or Flawed

NA

Question Type

Must Be True Questions

Stimulus Summary

Today’s literature:
Much is inferior Most authors are inexperienced Most authors’ work lack the intricacy/significance of good literature

Answer Anticipation

This Must be True question can be split into two parts - the part discussing much of today’s literature/most modern authors, and the part discussing Hypatia. These are distinct sections, and we should be sure that we don’t attribute to Hypatia something we learn about most modern authors, and vice versa.
With that line drawn, it’d be important to make sure you know what is said about both of them. It’s also important to note that Hypatia’s work is compared against her earlier work, not the works of other authors.
With all that noted, it’s hard to see what direction the answer will head in, so this question is going to be more about analyzing the answer choices than anticipating an answer!

Answer choices

  1. A
    Much of today's literature Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    The stimulus doesn’t discuss whether Hypatia’s new novel focuses on the significant, so this answer is unsupported.

  2. B
    Much of today's literature Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    We learn that Hypatia’s new novel has more grace than her earlier works, but we don’t learn about the grace in much of today’s literature by other authors.

  3. C
    Hypatia's latest novel is Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    Assuming that intricacy and a focus on the significant constitute today’s standards of good literature, there’s no indication that Hypatia meets it. We learn only that her new book is more mature, complex, and graceful than her old ones - not that it’s intricate or focused on the significant.

  4. D
    Hypatia's latest novel is Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    There’s not enough information to compare Hypatia’s latest work to the majority of today’s literature - just to her earlier work. Her new novel could be quite bad compared to modern literature, while still being much better than earlier works and thus showing promise.

  5. E
    Hypatia's latest novel has Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E matches the stem
    This answer compares something that we do have a basis to compare - Hypatia’s new novel to her old ones. We know that the new one has more maturity, grace, and complexity than her earlier ones. Since it’s more complex, we can say that it’s more intricate than her earlier works, and intricacy is one property of good literature. So her new novel is more intricate than earlier works, marking it as having one property of good literature to a greater degree than her earlier works.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 11%
  2. B 2%
  3. C 4%
  4. D 4%
  5. E Credited 79%

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