Reading comp PrepTest 119 · Section 1 · Question 8

Topic: Humanities

Paragraph 1

• Paragraph note
  • BG on Obasan; Author’s view
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • BG - Japanese-Canadian family during WWII; daughter’s perspective as family disintegrates
  • Author - Obasan uses form to convey the protagonist’s heroism and symbolism to critique the majority culture (main point)

Paragraph 2

• Paragraph note
  • Form/protagonist’s heroism
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Analogy - 3 stages like anthropological rite of passage
  • List - Stages, and comparison to three-stage book structure

Paragraph 3

• Paragraph note
  • Symbolism/critique of majority culture (and wrap-up)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Christian symbols to question ethics of majority culture
  • Example - Stone into bread; facts of majority culture’s abuse and bread of durability of her people

Main Point: Joy Kogawa uses form and symbolism in Obasan, the former to convey the heroism of the major character and the latter to critique the majority culture.

Lines 8-12 - The Author presents his viewpoint and the main topics of the passage (form/heroism; symbols/critique)

Lines 13-15 - The first main topic is fleshed out

Lines 41-44 - The second main topic is introduced

Line 44 - An example of the second main topic is introduced

Lines 53-58 - The Author’s main point is reiterated

Importance of Work - While many Humanities passages focus on a work’s innovative nature, some focus solely on the elements of the work that make it worthwhile or important, even if they’re not innovative. That’s the case here. The Author never refers to Kogawa’s Obasan as innovative, but he does present the important elements of the work that allow it to emphasize its main themes - the major character’s heroism and her critique of the majority culture (Lines 8-10). He connects each of these themes to a different element of her writing - the novel’s form for the former, and the novel’s symbolism for the latter. Paragraph 2 is dedicated to discussing the connection between form and the main character’s heroism, while Paragraph 3 discusses how the novel’s symbols support the critique of the majority culture. Finally, the passage ends with a summary of this view. When a passage falls into this Meta-Structure, the main point is a summary of the Author’s view on what makes the work important or worth studying, reflected in our summary above.

List - Paragraph 2 features two lists. The first establishes the elements of a rite of passage, as defined by anthropologists. The second lists the sections of Obasan to show that they line up with those elements of the rite of passage. This is all in service of supporting the paragraph’s thesis - that Obasan’s form supports the major character’s heroism.

Example - Paragraph 3 features an example of symbolism that Kogawa uses to critique the majority culture, reinforcing the main point of the paragraph (and half of the passage’s overall main point).

The main point is stated at the end of Paragraph 1 and restated at the end of the passage. The main point previews the structure of the rest of the passage. Each paragraph starts with its thesis and then uses a structural element (list; example, respectively) to support that thesis. Thus, the passage is pretty straightforward overall, and we should focus on getting through the questions as quickly as possible to save time for a passage that is more difficult - there’s definitely one in the future of this section!