Reading comp PrepTest 121 · Section 3 · Question 12

Passage

Questions 6-12  .        The poet Louise Glück has said that she feels  . comfortable writing within a tradition often Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Humanities


Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Background; 2 approaches
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Background - English tradition, only male poets
    • Contemporary women poets - Rejected tradition as inadequate for women
    • Bluck - Embraces it (“tradition of her language”)

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • Gluck’s embrace of tradition
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Read poems with great themes - loss, time, desire
    • Themes are universal, poems/tradition explore them

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Gluck’s critics
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Working in male-dominated tradition will lead to accepting assumptions
    • Forms/tools can’t confront history
    • Need to create uniquely female poetry - new forms/voice

Paragraph 4

  • Paragraph note
    • Gluck’s response to Critics
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Female perspective as limiting as critics view tradition
    • Differences between genders emerge more naturally without conscious intent
    • Themes are timeless; literature isn’t and reflects social/historical context

Main Point: While some critics maintain that the English poetic tradition’s domination by male voices requires women to develop their own forms and voice, Gluck focuses on writing about universal themes, believing that any differences between genders will come out naturally rather than consciously.

Key Lines?

Lines 7-9 - Gluck’s influences

Lines 9-11 - Gluck’s view of herself

Lines 11-13 - View of critics

Line 14 - Gluck’s view

Lines 25-28 - Gluck’s views on universal themes

Lines 33-36 - Critics’ counterpoint

Lines 41-44 - Critics direction for poetry

Lines 45-48 - Gluck responds

Lines 48-51 - Gluck argues goal will be reached without conscious approach

Meta-Structure?

Exploring a Debate - While passages that present two opposed viewpoints usually see the Author resolve it, either by taking sides or bringing the two viewpoints together, in this case, he doesn’t have any moments where he clearly sides with one viewpoint over the other! This is previewed in Lines 11-14, where the two sides of the debate are highlighted without editorializing, and then it’s explored in the back-and-forth nature of the passage, with Gluck presenting her viewpoint in Paragraph 2, the Critics responding in Paragraph 3, and Gluck responding to the Critics in Paragraph 4. While the Author doesn’t overtly take sides, the focus is clearly on Gluck here, with more space and the last word/rebuttal being given to her. When in an Exploring a Debate passage, the two sides make up the main point, with a focus on whichever viewpoint the Author focuses on (if there is a focus). Here, that means the main point reflects both the view of the Critics and Gluck, with a focus on Gluck, as we summarized above.

Last Thoughts?

This passage is interesting in how the viewpoints all interact with one another. The Author is largely passive, presenting the “debate” between Gluck and her critics. Gluck shows up presenting her own view in Paragraph 1, and the Author mentions the view of the critics. Paragraphs 2 and 4 are both on Gluck’s views, which, combined with her viewpoint in Paragraph 1, will make it hard to find information about what she believes without more specific notes covering content (e.g., Theme for Paragraph 2). Paragraph 3 interjects between the Gluck paragraphs with the view of the Critics. Let’s try to keep the viewpoints and, for Gluck, content of each section clear in our head and in our notes!

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

Humanities

Strategy Overview

Review the Author’s Attitude towards Gluck’s viewpoint, then find an answer reflecting it

Answer Anticipation

This Author’s Attitude question has two-word answers, which generally means that the correct one will have a word reflecting a positive, negative, or neutral view, and then another indicating certainty or strength. So we should anticipate whether the Author is positive, negative, or neutral, and how strongly he feels in that direction.Also, before diving into the passage, it’s extremely rare for the Author of a passage to write about an artist in a negative light or even a truly neutral one, so we should be defaulting to positive, unless specific language points us in a different direction.The first time we see both sides of the debate is at the end of Paragraph 1, but the Author only highlighted without editorializing. Throughout the rest of the passage, there’s no clear statement of endorsement in either direction.But while the Author doesn’t overtly take sides, the focus is clearly on Gluck here, with more space and the last word/rebuttal being given to her. There are also several instances where the Author presents her views as being correct. For example, in Lines 20-22, the timeless subjects Gluck addresses are presented by the Author, not Gluck, showing that he feels the focus of her poetry is timeless. In Paragraph 4, Gluck “observes” and “points out” things, which shows a certain level of agreement between the Author and Gluck - you generally wouldn’t say someone points out something that you think is incorrect! These subtle cues tell us two things. First, the Author views Gluck’s view of poetry in a positive light. Second, they’re subtle, and so the correct answer shouldn’t show too much enthusiasm or endorsement of that view. Let’s find a weakly positive answer.

Answer choices

  1. A
    respectful dismissal
    Why choice A is not credited

    (A) The Author is certainly respectful towards Gluck, and if there were a negative attitude towards a central artist in a Humanities passage, this answer would likely capture it. However, the Author never disagrees with anything Gluck says, and he agrees with at least some parts of it, so this answer is incorrect.

  2. B
    grudging acceptance
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) This answer is weakly positive, but “grudging” doesn’t do a good job of capturing the viewpoint of the Author. He never says that he doesn’t want to accept the view, or that it’s problematic or runs counter to certain beliefs he has. Something to that effect would be necessary for “grudging” to be correct.

  3. C
    detached indifference
    Why choice C is not credited

    (C) This is a very tempting answer since the Author never makes an explicit statement of support or criticism of Gluck. However, the Author sat down and wrote a passage about Gluck’s view of poetry - why would he do that if he felt “detached indifference” towards the subject? This answer makes more sense when asking about something that the Author doesn’t care about - an ancillary part of the passage that the Author dismissed as irrelevant or uninteresting. Since the Author spends a lot of time discussing Gluck and her views on poetry, this answer is incorrect.

  4. D
    tacit endorsement
    Why choice D matches the stem

    (D) This answer is weakly positive, so it’s in the ballpark. Since the Author, in several locations, presents Gluck’s views in a way that suggests agreement with it, as noted in our Anticipation section, we can select an answer stating “endorsement.” And since those points of agreement are subtle and not explicitly stated, “tacit” is a good word to highlight the weakness of that view. This answer is therefore correct.

  5. E
    enthusiastic acclaim
    Why choice E is not credited

    (E) Way too positive. The Author would need to explicitly, repeatedly, and strongly support Gluck’s view for this to be the case, and the passage falls well short of that.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 3%
  2. B 1%
  3. C 28%
  4. D Credited 59%
  5. E 10%

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Discussion

  • Why is D correct? 3 replies

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