Reading comp PrepTest 132 · Section 1 · Question 25

Passage

Questions 22-27  .        Recent criticism has sought to align Sarah Orne  . Jewett, a notable writer of regional fiction Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Humanities


Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Similarities and differences between Jewett and domestic fiction (both focus on women, but Jewett lacks children and religion)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Critics' view:
      • Nineteenth-century U.S. writer Sarah Orne Jewett wrote domestic novels like the previous generation (first sentence)
    • Comparison, according to the author:
      • Both focus on women, with men in the periphery (second sentence)
      • But Jewett didn't focus on children/rearing, while domestic novels did (fourth through sixth sentences)
      • Domestic novels were Protestant, while Jewett's are mostly secular (last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "notable writer" (first sentence); "does resemble" (second sentence); "differs markedly" (third sentence); "prominent roles" (fourth sentence); "chief source of drama" (fourth sentence); "almost entirely absent" (sixth sentence); "Even more strikingly" (last sentence); "almost wholly secular world" (last sentence)

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • Author's explanation of differences (domestic novel's purpose is piety and instruction, Jewett's novels as high culture)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Comparisons, according to the author:
      • Potential reason for differences: differences in author's preferences and transformation of society (at best partial) (first sentence)
      • Important reason for differences: The shifting view of fiction, from (domestic) part of the continuum that taught and promoted piety to (Jewett's) fiction as art with its own inherent value ("high-cultural") (second through last sentences)
    • Author's attitude: "might attribute them" (first sentence); "may help to explain" (second sentence); "it can be argued that these differences ultimately reflect different conceptions" (second sentence); "is based" (third sentence); "indistinguishably" (fourth sentence); "more didactic aims are absent" (last sentence)

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Author on "high-cultural" aesthetic as major difference (became dominant in last 19th c., fiction as pure/formal art)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Comparison, according to the author:
      • The "high-cultural" aesthetic changed from one of many conceptions of art to the dominant one in 19th/20th centuries (first sentence)
      • Jewett intended works as an end — art for art's sake; domestic novel authors intended works as means to end (teaching piety) (second and third sentence)
    • Author's view:
      • This fundamental difference should be given more weight when comparing Jewett to domestic novelists (last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "dominant one" (first sentence); "not as a means to an end but as an end in themselves" (third sentence); "fundamental difference should be given more weight" (last sentence)

Main Point: A shift in conceptions of fiction from the time of the domestic novel to the time in which Jewett wrote is a fundamental difference that should be given more weight in assessing these works' relationship than their similar subject matter.

Meta-Structure?

Correcting the Record: This passage most closely fits the Correcting the Record major Meta-Structure.* In such a passage, the author typically starts by describing a common misconception or false belief. Often, this false belief is based on a lack of information. Then, the author explains why this past belief is false or misleading, occasionally offering an alternative belief. In this passage, we learn that recent critics link Jewett's nineteenth-century regional fiction to the domestic novelists that preceded her. The author then corrects that view, arguing that there are important differences between the two, ultimately attributing those differences to the two parties' "different conceptions of the nature and purpose of fiction" (P2, S2). While the domestic novelists' work had instructional and religious purposes — they taught their readers about Protestant worship and child-rearing — Jewett's fiction saw novels as a "high-cultural," art-for-art's-sake medium.

In a passage that uses a Correcting the Record Meta-Structure, the main point is often the author’s explanation of why the misconception is false. However, if the author provides an alternative belief, the main point will be the author’s opinion about that belief. Since the author provides a new belief on Jewett's books, we made the crux of our anticipated main point.

*As is often the case with passages that use a Meta-Structure from the Critical family of major Meta-Structures, several other Critical Meta-Structures could also describe this passage. We could easily call this a Criticizing a Viewpoint or Rebutting Critics passage, even if the author's tone isn't especially disapproving toward the corrected view. We could also call this an Old Approach/New Approach passage, with Jewett's conception of fiction as the "new approach." We could even use some Meta-Structures from other families. We could call this an Innovative [Subject] passage since Jewett's new approach to fiction could be considered an "innovation." We could even call this a Phenomenon/Explanation passage (phenomenon: differences between Jewett's novels and those of the domestic novelists of the 1850s; explanation: different beliefs about the purpose of literature).

Comparison: In a passage that outlines similarities and differences between Jewett's nineteenth-century regional fiction and the domestic novelists that preceded her, it's not surprising that the most prominent minor Meta-Structure is the comparison. The passage largely serves as a comparison between these two parties' literature, arguing that despite superficial similarities in subject matter, the differences between them and their purpose should be given more weight. Expect several Minor Detail, Argument Structure, or Application questions to spotlight some of the specific similarities and differences between the two.

Last Thoughts?

There was some high-level vocab thrown around in this passage (e.g., "didactic"), so we might get a couple questions that are going to require us to understand the meaning of things in context.

Also, there's a lot of wishy-washiness to the author's argument that we need to be careful of. The author admits to similarities between Jewett's nineteenth-century regional fiction and the domestic novelists that preceded her, even though the differences are the main point. The author also brings up potential alternative explanations for these differences and amidst that they "may help to explain the differences" (P2, S2) even if they thin the primary reason lies elsewhere. So, the author's attitude is much more balanced and "uncertain" than we normally see.

Question prompt

Which one of the Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: E

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

Question Type

Humanities

Strategy Overview

Review the main point and any major Meta-Structures, then find an answer that best captures the latter with the details from the former

Answer Anticipation

A question that asks for a passage's "primary function" asks us to select the answer choice that describes why the author wrote the passage. The correct answer will describe an action: what the author hoped to do in the passage and how the author accomplished that.Now, in a broad sense, every author hopes to convince us that the main point is true. However, different authors employ different means to convince us of that main point. That's why the passage's Meta-Structure can be revealing: it helps us predetermine how this specific author was attempting to convey the main point.In this case, the central Meta-Structure was Correcting the Record. In such a passage, the author typically starts by describing a common misconception or false belief. Then, the author explains why this past belief is false or misleading, occasionally offering an alternative belief.In this passage, we learn that recent critics link Jewett's nineteenth-century regional fiction to the domestic novelists that preceded her. The author then corrects that view, arguing that there are important differences between the two, ultimately attributing those differences to the two parties' "different conceptions of the nature and purpose of fiction" (P2, S2). While the domestic novelists' work had instructional and religious purposes — they taught their readers about Protestant worship and child-rearing — Jewett's fiction saw novels as a "high-cultural," art-for-art's-sake medium. The author ultimately concludes that this "fundamental difference" should be given "more weight" than the "superficial" similarities between the parties' works (P3, S4).So, we should look for an answer choice that says the passage's primary function is to correct a recent criticism that links a specific writer to a literary movement and recategorize that writer with a different movement.

Answer choices

  1. A
    It proposes and defends Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited

    (A) Does this say the passage's primary function is to correct a recent criticism that links a specific writer to a literary movement and recategorize that writer with a different movement?

    Nope. The passage never attempts to redefine what a "domestic novel" is, nor does it appear to invent the "high-cultural aesthetic" that it discusses, so there are no radical redefinitions here. The author seems to be showing how the accepted definitions of these things do and don't apply to a specific writer.

  2. B
    It proposes an evaluation Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) Does this say the passage's primary function is to correct a recent criticism that links a specific writer to a literary movement and recategorize that writer with a different movement?

    No. The author brings up Jewett's work and domestic novels, arguing that her work isn't in that style of writing — not that it's a paradigmatic example of it. And the author also doesn't argue that her work is paradigmatic of a separate style of writing — just that it was influenced by an aesthetic style that became dominant in the late 1800s (P3, S1-S3).

  3. C
    It argues for a Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited

    (C) Does this say the passage's primary function is to correct a recent criticism that links a specific writer to a literary movement and recategorize that writer with a different movement?

    No. The group of writers mentioned in the passage is the domestic novelists of the 1850s. Jewett is not a member of this group ("domestic novelists of the previous generation," P1, S1), and the passage doesn't call for a reappraisal of the links between the authors in this group.

  4. D
    It weighs the merits Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) Does this say the passage's primary function is to correct a recent criticism that links a specific writer to a literary movement and recategorize that writer with a different movement?

    Nope. The author mentions two conceptions of the nature of fiction but doesn't compare their merits (P2, S2). Also, that was in service of explaining the difference between Jewett's novels and those of the domestic novelists of the 1850s. So, even if the author did compare the merits, it wouldn't be the primary purpose of the passage.

  5. E
    It rejects a way Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E matches the stem

    (E) Does this say the passage's primary function is to correct a recent criticism that links a specific writer to a literary movement and recategorize that writer with a different movement?

    Finally, yes. We can confidently select (E). After all, the author brings up a recent criticism, stating that Jewett's work is aligned with the domestic novelists (P1, S1-S2). The author then pivots to differences between these works (P1, S3), goes into detail about why the differences might exist (P2, S1-S5), and concludes that the differences are "fundamental" while the similarities are "superficial" (P3, S4). So, this answer perfectly encapsulates the primary purpose of the passage — to show why the classification of Jewett as a domestic novelist is wrong and why she should instead be viewed as reflecting the "high cultural aesthetic" that viewed novels as a "pure art" that didn't need to serve other purposes such as moral and domestic instruction.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 3%
  2. B 13%
  3. C 7%
  4. D 5%
  5. E Credited 71%

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