Reading comp PrepTest 112 · Section 2 · Question 11

Passage

Questions 7-14  .        In Intellectual Culture in Elizabethan and  . Jacobean England , J.W. Binns asserts that the drama Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Humanities


Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Binns's view (important Latin Renaissance texts are underappreciated because of academic specialization)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Binns's view:
      • People who learn Latin tend to leave alone texts on "theology and science, law and medicine," even though those writings "revolutionized Western thought" (fifth sentence)
    • Comparisons, according to Binns:
      • Latin was used by English intellectuals (especially for works of law, theology, and science) more than English during the Renaissance (second sentence)
      • Language specialists focus on poems and orations more than works of theology, science, law, and medicine (fifth sentence)
      • Unlike language specialists, specialists in theology, science, law, and medicine do not have philological (linguistic) training (fifth sentence)
      • Historians can find more guidance when reading Milton's Latin poetry than they can when reading the more challenging scientific works by Newton (last sentence)

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • More on Binns's view (intellectual historians underestimate the importance of Latin on Renaissance England)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Binns's view:
      • "Intellectual historians" love to dig into "historical, cosmological, and theological" topics, but they do so with texts that were either written in or translated into English (first sentence)
      • This means that they ignore important context for these English writers, including that English writers were taught Latin in school and grew up in a world that was dominated by Latin (second through last sentence)

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Author's view (limitations are understandable but distort our understanding of Renaissance England)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Author's view:
      • This problem is understandable because no one is trained with all the skills that you would need to completely understand some Renaissance texts (first and second sentence)
      • Still, this problem keeps us from truly understanding some important texts (last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "understandable" (first sentence), "No modern classicist" (second sentence), "difficult" (second sentence), "few students" (second sentence), "inability to cross boundaries" (last sentence), "each presents a distorted reading" (last sentence)

Main Point: Because so few academics are trained to read Renaissance Latin, some important texts from the English Renaissance have not been thoroughly studied.

Meta-Structure?

Problem/Solution: This passage uses a Problem/Solution Meta-Structure.* In such passages, the author will articulate a problem and then (usually) will discuss potential solutions.

In this specific passage, the first paragraph lays out the problem as it has been stated by one J.W. Binns. According to Binns, "because many academic specializations do not overlap, many texts central to an interpretation of early modern English culture have gone unexamined" (P1, S3). The rest of the first paragraph and the entirety of the second describes how people who can read Latin only read the literary stuff (like poems and stories) and the people who have the specialized knowledge to understand the more technical stuff (like science, medicine, theology, and law) haven't been trained to read Latin.

Now that we have identified the problem, we need to ask ourselves, does the author provide a solution? The answer is simply no. The author never identifies what could be done to fix this problem, but that's okay! In a Problem/Solution Meta-structure, the author is not obligated to fix the problem that the passage introduces. In this specific case, the author is content to simply tell us that the issue at hand is a problem.

Generally, the main point in a Problem/Solution passage will be either the solution the author endorses or proffers. However, since we know that our author does not tell us about any potential solutions, our main point will be our author's opinion on the problem. In the last paragraph, the passage gives us a sentence that summarizes just that. It says, "[T]he result of each side's inability to cross boundaries has been that each presents a distorted reading of the intellectual culture of Renaissance England" (P3, S2). Thus, our main point will be something like, "Because so few academics are trained to read Renaissance Latin, some important texts from the English Renaissance have not been thoroughly studied."

*This passage is almost a Reporting a Viewpoint passage but the author presents their view in the third paragraph. Still, if you treated this passage like a Reporting a Viewpoint passage, you'd come out with a solid grasp of the main point and organization. You could also think of this as a Phenomenon/Explanation passage (phenomenon: many English Renaissance texts go unexamined; explanation: few scholars can appreciate these texts in their original Latin)

Last Thoughts?

Whenever a RC passage discusses an author at length (as this passage does with Binns), it's important to analyze the relationship between this writer and the author of the passage. Does the author of the passage agree? Do they disagree? In this text, there's nothing explicit to tell us how our author feels about Binns, so we have to rely on inferring that attitude from the tone of the passage. 

To that end, we should note that the first two paragraphs are framed as Binn's argument. Sentences often say "Binn asserts" or "according to Bin." Nowhere in these two paragraphs is it apparent that the author has shifted into their own voice and perspective. Yet, in the third paragraph, where there is no "Binn says," it seems that we have shifted to the author's voice. Other than conceding that the limitations Binns observes are "understandable," the argument remains the same. Therefore, we can infer that the author implicitly agrees with Binn's thoughts. Understanding that relationships will almost certainly help us answer some of the questions about this passage.

Question prompt

Binns would be most 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 your notes to recall Binn's views, then find an answer that must be true according to the passage

Answer Anticipation

This question stem asks us to infer a belief Binns would agree with. Often, one's views are described at length throughout the passage, so reviewing the passage or anticipating what the correct answer will say is not a wise investment of our limited time. In this case, however, the question stem asks about Binns' opinion on the English–language writings of Renaissance England traditionally studied by intellectual historians. Therefore, we can use our notes and what we highlighted/underlined to anticipate what the correct answer will likely say.So, where did Binns offer an opinion on this topic? Our note for the second paragraph is, "More on Binns's view (intellectual historians underestimate the importance of Latin on Renaissance England)." Since the note mentions intellectual historians and their underestimation of Latin, the supporting text is probably there.Upon review, we'll see that Binns argues that scholars treat these works as "an autonomous and coherent whole" and ignore important context about Latin-language influences (P2, S2). Let's see if we can use this information to support and select an answer choice.

Answer choices

  1. A
    These writings have unfortunately Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited

    (A) Is this consistent with Binns' view that scholars treat these works as "an autonomous and coherent whole" while ignoring how Latin-language writing influenced the works?

    Nope. Our review didn't reveal that Binns thinks these works are "undervalued." Instead, Binns argues that scholars overlook the influence Latin and other writers from Europe had on these texts. But misunderstanding a text is not the same as "undervaluing" it. Scholars seem to value these works quite a bit, in fact (P2, S1). Because this doesn't match our anticipation, we can eliminate (A).

    Besides, this answer choice is trying to confuse us by bringing in a fact from the first paragraph. Binns argues that scholars who read the Latin-language writings of Renaissance England focus primarily on literary materials (P1, S4). Binns never says that scholars who read the English-language writings of Renaissance England are only interested in literary subject matter.

  2. B
    These writings, according to Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) Is this consistent with Binns' view that scholars treat these works as "an autonomous and coherent whole" while ignoring how Latin-language writing influenced the works?

    Not quite. According to Binns, scholars underestimate the Latin-language writings' influence on these English-written works. Binns doesn't say that scholars argue that these English-written works didn't influence the Renaissance's intellectual upheavals. Moreover, it's unclear why Latin-language specialists' opinions are relevant to a discussion of English-written works. Because (B) doesn't match our anticipation, we can cross it off.

  3. C
    These writings, as analyzed Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C matches the stem

    (C) Is this consistent with Binns' view that scholars treat these works as "an autonomous and coherent whole" while ignoring how Latin-language writing influenced the works?

    Yes! Binns thinks these scholars interpret these English-language works as an "autonomous and coherent whole." However, this view overlooks important context — the influence of Latin-language writing on Renaissance England. Without considering how Latin-language works influenced the writers in Renaissance England, intellectual historians can produce only a "superficially coherent reading of the "intellectual culture" of Renaissance England. That's a good match for how Binns feels. We can select (C) and move on.

  4. D
    These writings have been Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) Is this consistent with Binns' view that scholars treat these works as "an autonomous and coherent whole" while ignoring how Latin-language writing influenced the works?

    Nope. In fact, Binns argues that intellectual historians overlook the influence of Continental works. So, these intellectual historians are almost certainly not comparing these English-language writings with the Continental works. We can cross off (D).

  5. E
    These writings need to Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited

    (E) Is this consistent with Binns' view that scholars treat these works as "an autonomous and coherent whole" while ignoring how Latin-language writing influenced the works?

    No. Even if the intellectual historians overlook how Latin-language writings from Continental Europe influenced the English-language works, that doesn't mean they thought they needed to study the English works separately from the Latin works. These intellectual historians could have been unaware of the influence or (more likely) incapable of studying works in English and Latin.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 13%
  2. B 7%
  3. C Credited 63%
  4. D 5%
  5. E 12%

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