Reading comp PrepTest 115 · Section 3 · Question 16

Topic: Humanities

Paragraph 1

• Paragraph note
  • Background on two perspectives on fairy tales (parents': common, focuses on moral instruction; children's)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • List of two perspectives on fairy tales, according to the author:
    • Reading as a child (last sentence)
    • Reading as an adult (more prevalent) looking for deeper moral lessons for kids (last sentence)
  • Author's attitude: "Nearly every" (last sentence) "bent on" (last sentence)

Paragraph 2

• Paragraph note
  • Example of reading as an adult (Bettelheim says Hansel and Gretel is about burdensome kids maturing)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Example of reading fairy tales as an adult: Bettelheim on "Hansel and Gretel" (first sentence)
  • Bettelheim's view:
    • Employs the viewpoint from the first paragraph (first sentence)
    • Hansel and Gretel is really about teaching greedy and burdensome kids to become "mature children" (second through last sentences)

Paragraph 3

• Paragraph note
  • Author on the motivation behind adults' reading (look for deeper meanings to distract from negative depictions of adults)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • List of two ways of interpreting story, according to the author:
    • A "superficial" reading that focuses on the plot and characters, and a "deeper" reading that looks for hidden meanings (first sentence)
  • Author's view:
    • Adults are drawn to the "deeper" reading to avoid facing unpleasant truths about the negative depiction of adults and parents in these fairy tales, as the "deeper" reading allows them to focus or reinterpret the stories to be about unruly children (second through fourth sentences)
  • Comparison, according to the author:
    • Adults' "deep" readings make their interpretations very different from and more instructive than the interpretations of those who do not share their assumptions or expectations (last sentence)
  • Author's attitude: "are drawn ... to avoid facing the unpleasant truths" (second sentence), "What makes fairy tales attractive" (third sentence); "are, to a large extent, suppressed by Bettelheim or 'rewritten' through reinterpretation" (fourth sentence); "we see" (last sentence); "very different" (last sentence)

Paragraph 4

• Paragraph note
  • Author's critique of the adults' approach (denies adult evil and stories' playful pleasure)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Author's view:
    • Bettelheim's approach belies the true nature of bad parental behavior (first sentence)
    • Recent research discredits the "selfish children and innocent adults" idea (second sentence)
  • Cause-and-effect relationship:
    • The denial of adult evil causes us to view children as evil and in need of moral instruction, which causes us to view children's literature as an object of moral instruction rather than just fun (last sentence)
  • Author's opinion: "suppresses the true nature of parental behavior" (first sentence); "Fortunately" (second sentence); "discredited to some extent" (second sentence); "The need to deny adult evil" (last sentence); "service of pragmatic instrumentality rather than foster an unproductive form of playful pleasure" (last sentence)

Main Point: Bettelheim and others who think that fairy tales should be understood as instructive tales for disobedient children mistakenly try to paint children as evil and adults as blameless.

Criticizing a Viewpoint: The Criticizing a Viewpoint Meta-Structure best fits the argument made in this passage.* The beginning of the passage introduces the "adult" view on to interpret fairy tales. This view (held by Bettleheim) argues that fairy tales are best understood as moral lessons for children who are, by nature, evil and disobedient (chill view, guys). In the following paragraphs, the passage criticizes this viewpoint by demonstrating how it is the product of a fundamental attempt to gloss over the fact that adults, too, can be evil and at fault.

In a passage with a Criticizing a Viewpoint Meta-Structure, the main point will be the author's central criticism or a summary of the criticisms. Let's catalog what we know about our author's criticism of Bettelheim's ideas: they arise from a desire to portray adults as perfect and children as awful and ignore that parents can be bad, too. Our main point should point these out —something like "Bettelheim and others who think that fairy tales are properly understood as instructive tales for disobedient children mistakenly try to paint children as evil and adults as blameless."

*Like many Critical Meta-Structures, you could hang other Meta-Structures from that family on this passage. Certainly, Correcting the Record and Rebutting Critics could work for this passage. You could also argue that this is a Generalization/Example passage, with the Bettelheim example standing in for the adult approach to fairy tales.

Example: The example is the most prominent minor Meta-Structure in this passage (assuming you don't classify the passage's major Meta-Structure as Generalization/Example). The author uses Bettelheim as an example (and, let's face it, a whipping boy) of the problematic "adult" way of interpreting fairy tales. This example is extensive — Bettelheim dominates the second paragraph and makes cameos in the third and fourth paragraphs. We should expect several questions on Bettelheim's interpretation of "Hansel and Gretel," the author's criticisms of his approach, and what his approach illustrates.

This is a particularly dense humanities reading, but it's made simpler by knowing where to start. The first paragraph makes it clear that the subject of the passage is a certain philosophy of interpreting fairy tales. Once we have identified this central topic, our job becomes understanding exactly how our author feels about that philosophy. Not good, right? Well, what are the author's specific concerns? By following this thought process, we can organize the passage's argument and be confident about answering questions about the author's view.