Reading comp PrepTest 111 · Section 2 · Question 2

Passage

Questions 1-6  .        Of the more than one thousand people who  . published memoirs of the French Revolution of Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Social Science


Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Background on memoirs from the French Revolution (a few mostly upper-class women; mostly royalist)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Cause-and-effect relationship, according to the author
      • The fact that only members of the upper class could easily write may have caused most French Revolution memoirs to be written by members of the upper class (second sentence)
    • Comparison, according to the author:
      • Royalists who wrote memoirs had the restored monarchy's approval, while the republicans risked political sanction (last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "might be attributed solely to" (second sentence)

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • Debate over these memoirs' reliability (and two-factor test to evaluate reliability)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Some historians' views:
      • The memoirs of this era are unreliable because they were written long after the actual events (first sentence)
    • List of ways French Revolution memoirs can be proven reliable, according to "other scholars":
      • If they are cross-verifiable (fourth sentence)
      • If they pass a subjective standard (Is it a plausible sequence of events, and does it match what is known of the author? Does the narrative sound like the author is just trying to prove themselves right?) (fifth through last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "Certainly, memory is ... picture of the past" (second sentence), "shown that close inspection" (third sentence),

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Author on the importance of memoirs (credibly account women's perspective on a variety of experiences during the Revolution)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Author's view:
      • Even though women define themselves "in relationship to their sex," they still accomplished a lot of social activism during the revolution (first and second sentences)
      • Bartholet shows that they are reliable (on both the factual & subjective sides) (last sentence)
      • These memoirs are important because they represent an early form of feminism (last sentence)
    • Examples of activism present in a memoir written by a woman, according to the author:
      • Madame de La Villirouët liberated prisoners by writing letters and pleading her husband's case in court (fourth sentence)
      • Women on both sides served as soldiers (fifth sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "Nonetheless" (second sentence), "abounded" (second sentence), "exhibit a variety of personalities and experiences" (third sentence), "attests to the credibility" (last sentence), "particularly significant" (last sentence), "clearly feminist mode of discourse and experience" (last sentence)

Main Point: Women's memoirs of the French Revolution provide credible accounts of women's perspectives on various experiences during that time.

Meta-Structure?

Importance of Subject: This passage utilizes an Importance of [Subject] Meta-Structure.* In an Importance of [Subject] passage, the author describes why something was historically significant or meaningful. "[Subject]" is a placeholder for whatever the subject of the passage happens to be. The subject of this passage is female-written memoirs of the French Revolution, so we can think of this as an Importance of Literature passage.

In these passages, the author's main point is generally their opinions on why the subject was important. The author does a pretty good job of summarizing their expressed opinions in the last sentence of the passage, so we can use that as our anticipated main point. However, we decided to simplify the language a bit for our bespoke main point: "Women's memoirs of the French Revolution provide credible accounts of women's perspectives on various experiences during that time."

*You could argue that we should classify this passage in the Critical family of Meta-Structues — using the Rebutting Critics or Correcting the Record Meta-Structure — since the author disagrees with "some historians" claims that these memoirs are unreliable. You could certainly classify the passage this way. However, because the author also wants to show that these memoirs are historically significant — and not just reliable — we thought the Importance of [Subject] Meta-Structure fit this passage better.

Last Thoughts?

This passage is a little strange in that it doesn't introduce the author's focus (the importance of the memoirs) until the third paragraph. Let this be a reminder that a passage doesn't always lay out its argument in the first paragraphs. In fact, many passages wait to reveal the main point until later in the text, so it's critical that we don't rush to create an argument in paragraphs that don't have one!

Question prompt

Based on the passage, Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: D

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

Question Type

Social Science

Strategy Overview

Refer to notes or what you highlighted/underlined to locate where the passage discusses writers of the memoirs about the French Revolution, and refer to the relevant part of the passage as needed to find that answer choice that must be true

Answer Anticipation

For questions that ask us to infer, from a few details in the passage, an answer choice that must be true, quickly finding and reviewing those details is critical. That is why we make brief notes describing the role of each paragraph and highlight or underline definitions and the minor Meta-Structures — doing so helps us find the salient information efficiently and reliably. Once we review that part of the passage, we can look through the answer choices to see which one is best supported by what we reviewed. Since the question stem asks us to make an inference, the correct answer probably won't restate something from the passage. Instead, the question will likely require us to draw a connection between a few different pieces of information.Here, the question asks about memoirs written by men from the French Revolution. Where did those show up in the passage? Well, we never read anything specifically about men's memoirs, but according to our notes, the first paragraph discusses background information on memoirs in general. Let's see what we can use from that section. The second sentence says that the women writers were mostly upper class because "only members of the upper class were able to write easily" (P1, S2). We also learn that "most of the memoirs were published decades after the Revolution" (P1, S4). Since the passage doesn't limit these facts to just women, they probably apply to men as well. Thus, we can infer that most male memoir writers were upper class and wrote their memoirs decades after the Revolution. Now, we'll head into the answer choices and look for something that matches one of those points.

Answer choices

  1. A
    They depict women who Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited

    (A) Does this say that most male memoir writers were upper class or wrote their memoirs decades after the Revolution?

    Nope. Cross (A) off. As we mentioned in our anticipation, the passage never explicitly mentions memoirs written by men, so we don't know what they chose to write in those memoirs!

  2. B
    They depict women who Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) Does this say that most male memoir writers were upper class or wrote their memoirs decades after the Revolution?

    No, so we can eliminate (B). As we mentioned in our anticipation, the passage never explicitly mentions memoirs written by men, so we don't know what was in the content of those memoirs.

  3. C
    They were suppressed by Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited

    (C) Does this say that most male memoir writers were upper class or wrote their memoirs decades after the Revolution?

    Negative. We can cross off (C) without a second thought. Besides, even though the passage says that republican memoirs "risked political sanctions against their work" (P1, S5), we don't know if most of the male memoirists were republican.

  4. D
    They were written by Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D matches the stem

    (D) Does this say that most male memoir writers were upper class or wrote their memoirs decades after the Revolution?

    Yes! This is a perfect match for the inference we made in our anticipation! (D) is our answer. We can select it and move on to the next question.

  5. E
    They were written by Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited

    (E) Does this say that most male memoir writers were upper class or wrote their memoirs decades after the Revolution?

    Nope. We inferred that most of these writers were from the upper class, so (E) is out.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 9%
  2. B 2%
  3. C 4%
  4. D Credited 85%
  5. E 1%

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