Reading comp PrepTest 121 · Section 3 · Question 8

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

As it is used 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 the purpose of the paragraph including Line 9, then use that and the immediate context around the word in question to define it

Answer Anticipation

Line 9 shows up in Paragraph 1, where we said that there was background on Gluck followed by a quick summary of the two approaches to poetry (those who reject the English poetic tradition and Gluck, who respects and admires it).Line 9 is the end of the background on Gluck, where the English poets that she grew up reading are noted (so it’s a part of the background). The word in question shows up in a sentence starting in Line 7, which heavily refers back to the preceding sentence (“believed this was the tradition”). “This” here refers to the works of Shakespeare, Blake, and other male poets.So the tradition of these many English poets is something she viewed as “her poetic inheritance” - these poems were something handed down to her from a previous generation. How did she use them? Well, we know that she views it with “respect and admiration” and uses it as a model for her own poetry (even if others have rejected it).Let’s find an answer reflecting that sense of “inheritance” - a set of poems and ways of writing them that influenced a later writer.

Answer choices

  1. A
    the burden that a Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited

    (A) (Lines 11-14) This answer sounds more like how those who reject the tradition would view it, not how Gluck does. Since the word in question is used to reflect her viewpoint, this answer is incorrect.

  2. B
    the set of poetic Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) This answer is too weak/bland in talking about the set of poetic forms that is viewed as “acceptable” within a linguistic culture. The poetic inheritance here doesn’t refer to the forms that are acceptable, but rather to the poems and poets that stand as a model for later writers.

  3. C
    the poetry written in Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C matches the stem

    (C) (Lines 4-9; Line 14) “Inheritance” here is how Gluck describes the English poetic tradition (“she believed…”), and she views the tradition with admiration and respect. She also lists the poets involved in this tradition as influences. Thus, with this context and the general meaning of “inheritance,” we can infer that the word refers to the poems written within the tradition that serve as examples for Gluck and other poets who view themselves as being members of that tradition, making this the correct answer.

  4. D
    the presumption that contemporary Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) (Lines 17-20) In Paragraph 2, Gluck talks about the “great themes and subjects” of the poetry she read, but that’s much later than Line 9, so it would be weird for the word used there to refer to these concepts from the future of the passage. Also, this answer is too restrictive - Gluck never argues that the tradition limits the subjects on which poets can write, but rather that these poems include discussions of universal themes. If they ignored any universal themes, she’d likely be in favor of writing on those, as well!

  5. E
    the imposition on a Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited

    (E) (Line 40) It’s the critics who mention Gluck’s adoption of these poetic forms and the inability to escape such “presuppositions,” not Gluck. That’s also in Paragraph 3. This answer is also relatively negative (“imposition”), and the word in question is used in a line reflecting Gluck’s beliefs, which are positive towards the tradition.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 6%
  2. B 10%
  3. C Credited 55%
  4. D 1%
  5. E 28%

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