Reading comp PrepTest 121 · Section 3 · Question 9

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 description Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: A

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Question Type

Humanities

Strategy Overview

Review what the passage says about unconscious revelations of gender differences, then find an analogy for it

Answer Anticipation

This question stem is a bit of a weird way to introduce a Parallel Reasoning question, but it asks us to find a situation that’s “like” one in the stimulus, so we should approach it as this question type.Looking at our notes, we can see that the question is referring to Gluck’s rebuttal to her critics’ argument, so we should look to Paragraph 4. There, we see that she believes “to the extent that there are some gender differences,” they will be revealed in the differences in how men and women write, and that this revelation will be made “with more authority” when not intended.So, in other words, a poem that reveals such differences does so naturally and without intent, showing a force that is shaping the writing of the genders in the background. Let’s find an answer with a similar situation.

Answer choices

  1. A
    a bird's flight that Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A matches the stem

    (A) We should always be matching up elements of the analogy to see if it makes sense. Here, the bird would have to be analogous to a poet. In the bird’s case, its flight is exposing some unseen force that’s guiding it. That is analogous to a poet, whose poem exposes some unseen historical force that’s guiding the poet based on their gender. This analogy holds together and has elements that match up with those from the stimulus, so this is the correct answer.

  2. B
    a ship's prow that Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) To match up elements, we’d have to say the ship is the poet and the prow is the poem. But the poems didn’t indicate something about strength, so this answer doesn’t match up.

  3. C
    a building's facade that Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited

    (C) Gluck’s view isn’t that differences in how the genders write poems are superficial, but rather that they’ll more authoritatively be highlighted if they’re not consciously forced into the poetry. This analogy thus fails.

  4. D
    a railroad track, without Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) (Lines 48-53) This answer brings up something that is necessary (“without which...is impossible”), which is too strong based on the original language in the passage. Good analogies have equal force/strength/certainty!

  5. E
    a novel that deliberately Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited

    (E) (Line 53) The question stem refers to “the absence of any specific intention,” and the passage talks about an “absence of conscious intention,” so this answer featuring the deliberate concealment of details doesn’t line up.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A Credited 75%
  2. B 4%
  3. C 8%
  4. D 8%
  5. E 5%

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