Reading comp PrepTest 110 · Section 4 · Question 14

Passage

Questions 7-14  .        Tragic dramas written in Greece during the fifth  . century B.C. engender considerable scholarly debate  . Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Humanities


Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Scholars including Snell and Barbu argue that fifth century Greek tragedies by authors like Aeschylus allow protagonists to choose their own paths.
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Fifth century Greek tragedies are the subject of a lot of scholarly debate (first sentence)
    • Snell: Aeschylus’s dramas develop a model of individual autonomy (second sentence)
      • Protagonist confronts paralyzing and fateful situation; examines their deepest motives, then acts according to own free will (third-fourth sentences)
      • The central theme of the plays is personal autonomy (sixth sentence)
    • Barbu: Aeschylean drama shows the emergence within Green civilization of individual free will (seventh sentence)
    • Author’s attitude: “considerable scholarly debate” (first sentence); “deepest motives” (fourth sentence); “grave consequences” (fifth sentence); “tortured internal debate” (fifth sentence); “personal autonomy” (sixth sentence); “psychological conclusions” (seventh sentence)

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • Rivier argues that the protagonists’ actions are dictated by the gods.
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Rivier: divine forces are external to the protagonist and experienced as an internal compulsion to act in a certain way (second sentence)
      • Protagonist has no free will; is aware of the impasse, and acts out of necessity along the only path that the gods have left open (third-fourth sentences)
      • Protagonist merely “recognizes” there is only one course of action (fifth sentence)
      • The fact that there is no room for free will is what makes the dramas truly tragic (first sentence)
    • Author’s attitude: “misrepresents” (first sentence); “truly tragic dimension” (second sentence); “what are claimed to be” (second sentence); “necessity imposed by the deities” (third sentence); “necessity dictates a path” (fourth sentence)

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Lesky argues that, in Agamemnon, Agamemnon’s character chooses a path dictated by the gods because of his own desires.
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Lesky: in Agamemnon, the title character is told that only the sacrifice of his daughter will bring a wind to blow his ships to battle (third sentence)
      • Agamemnon knows goddess Artemis wants him to sacrifice his daughter (fourth sentence)
      • He is also militarily ambitious and wants to win the battle (fifth sentence)
      • He chooses to sacrifice his daughter because of his own desires, and happens to fall in with a course of action dictated by the gods (sixth sentence)
      • Tragic action is a combination of human desire and supernatural forces (seventh sentence)
    • Author’s Attitude: “disputes both views” (first sentence); “brutally sacrifice” (second sentence); “constrained” (fourth sentence); “deeply desires” (fifth sentence); “violence of his passion” (sixth sentence); “constant tension” (seventh sentence)

Main Point: There are many scholarly viewpoints about the extent to which the protagonists’ actions in fifth century Greek tragedy are influenced by free will on the one hand and divine necessity on the other.

Key Lines?

Paragraph 1, Sentence 1 (P1 S1) - Introduces topic of passage

P1 S2 - Snell’s view

P1 S7 - Barbu’s view

P2 S4 - Rivier’s view

P3 S6 - Lesky’s view

Meta-Structure?

Describing a Debate: This passage uses a Describing a Debate Meta-Structure. With respect to fifth-century Greek tragedy, including plays by Aeschylus, the passage highlights the differing views of four scholars on the topic of how much individual autonomy and divine necessity drive human action. Both Snell and Barbu believe that human free will is paramount, while Rivier believes that divine compulsion is the sole driving force behind the protagonists’ actions. Lesky’s view is somewhere in the middle, positing that it is tension between human and divine forces that drives tragic action in Aeschylus’s plays.

The minor Meta-Structure used in this passage is Comparison. The author is constantly comparing the views of these four scholars to each other. The author begins with Snell’s perspective, then defines each additional scholar’s views relative to the views of their colleagues that were described earlier.

The author’s viewpoint is entirely absent from this passage, so it is not possible to classify this passage as a “Resolving a Debate” passage.

Last Thoughts?

The author of this passage works their way methodically and neutrally from one end of the continuum between human free will and divine necessity to the other, defining where each scholar falls on the spectrum. In some passages that describe a debate, it is possible to discern where the author falls in terms of their own viewpoint on the topic under discussion, but this passage is worded quite neutrally, so this kind of inference is not possible here. The focus in this passage is on how the views of the thinkers described relate to each other, rather than on how the author relates to the topic.

Question prompt

The primary purpose of Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: C

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

Question Type

Humanities

Strategy Overview

Review the main point and any major Meta-Structures, then find an answer that best captures the latter with the details from the former.

Answer Anticipation

A question that asks for a passage’s “primary purpose” asks us to select the answer choice that describes why the author wrote the passage. The correct answer will describe an action: what the author hoped to do in the passage and how the author accomplished that.Now, in a broad sense, every author hopes to convince us that the main point is true. However, different authors employ different means to convince us of that main point. That’s why the passage’s Meta-Structure can be revealing: it helps us predetermine how this specific author was attempting to convey the main point.In this case, the central Meta-Structure was Describing a Debate, where the main point is generally a description of the different sides of the debate. In this case, four scholars’ points of view are arranged along a continuum, where, on one side, we have Snell and Barbu’s belief that the protagonist’s free will determines the action they take in Aeschylean drama, and on the other side Rivier’s view that the gods determine the action the protagonist takes. In the middle, we have Lesky’s view that human action is driven by the tension between human motivations and divine compulsion.The bulk of the passage is devoted to laying out the various thinkers’ viewpoints and describing their perspectives, so let’s look for that idea in the answer choices.

Answer choices

  1. A
    argue against one particular Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited

    (A) Does this answer choice describe the way in which the author conveys information about the debate over differing views of fifth century Greek drama?

    No. The author’s views are conspicuously absent from this passage. The entirety of the passage is devoted to describing the views of the four academics highlighted by the author, so it cannot be said that the author is making any kind of argument at all.

    This is not the right answer choice.

  2. B
    establish that there are Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) Does this answer choice describe the way in which the author conveys information about the debate over differing views of fifth century Greek drama?

    No. The author is not primarily discussing themes of Greek tragedy in this passage. The only place where the word “theme” is mentioned is P1 S6, where the author says Snell believes that individual autonomy is the central theme of Aeschylean drama. The fact that this word does not appear in either of the following two paragraphs indicates that delineating themes is not the primary purpose of this passage.

  3. C
    present aspects of an Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C matches the stem

    (C) Does this answer choice describe the way in which the author conveys information about the debate over differing views of fifth century Greek drama?

    Yes. This is exactly what the author is doing, and exactly what we stated in our anticipation of the right answer. The author is discussing aspects of the views of the four thinkers in question.

  4. D
    point out the relative Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) Does this answer choice describe the way in which the author conveys information about the debate over differing views of fifth century Greek drama?

    No. As we have recognized, the author’s viewpoint is conspicuously absent from the passage. As such, the author is not pointing out “relative merits” of the perspectives they are describing; to do this would be to take sides and make judgments about which aspects of which views were in accordance with the author’s own thinking.

    This answer choice is a mischaracterization of what the author is doing in the passage.

  5. E
    suggest the relevance of Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited

    (E) Does this answer choice describe the way in which the author conveys information about the debate over differing views of fifth century Greek drama?

    No. The author confines themselves to a discussion of Greek tragedy in this passage; they do not branch out into the “philosophical debate over human motivation.” This answer choice is a mischaracterization of what the author is doing in the passage.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 5%
  2. B 3%
  3. C Credited 81%
  4. D 10%
  5. E 2%

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