Reading comp PrepTest 111 · Section 2 · Question 5

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.

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.

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!