Reading comp PrepTest 132 · Section 1 · Question 27

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.

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.

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.