Reading comp PrepTest 140 · Section 4 · Question 3

Passage

Questions 1-6  .       African American painter Sam Gilliam (b. 1933)  . is internationally recognized as one of the foremost  . Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage SummaryTopic: Humanities

Paragraph 1
  • Paragraph note
    • Intro of artist and background on his style
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Sam Gilliam - 50s and 60s; DC; Color Field style
    • Color Field style - grew from abstract expressionism, from minimally representative abstractions to completely nonrepresentational
Paragraph 2
  • Paragraph note
    • Gilliam's motivation and a comparison to other African American contemporaries
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Other African American artists - representational, political
    • Gilliam - Motivated as a reaction to contemporaries; their art didn't have room for subtlety or growth
    • Example of contemporary - Collage of images from magazines
    • Gilliam - Wanted something more evocative of complexity
Paragraph 3
  • Paragraph note
    • Expectations and Gilliam's development of style
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Broken expectation - African American artists will make "explicitly political art"
    • Progression - Painted and folded canvases; to loose canvas draped in room (sculptural quality) like hanging clothes
    • Thesis - Gilliam advanced view that the African American experience was best represented indirectly through mood
Main Point:
By breaking from his contemporaries and working against expectations for African American artists, Sam Gilliam's Color Field abstractions were able to better capture the nuance of the African American experience through creating a mood.

Key Lines:
Lines 12-16 - Gilliam's motivation is discussed, and his work is compared to his contemporaries
Lines 21-15 - An example of the other style
Lines 28-34 - What Gilliam wanted from his art
Lines 36-39 - Gilliam vs. expectations
Lines 53-59 - The Author's thesis on what Gilliam's work demonstrated

Meta-Structure:
Exploration of importance of an artist. This is a common topic/argument in RC.

Last Thoughts:
The passage goes into a lot of detail on several art styles—the Color Field style (Paragraph 1), the abstract expressionism it grew from, the more representative works of Gilliam's contemporaries, and the two "types" of Gilliam's work. We'll likely get questions about these, so it's important to be generally aware of the styles and also the differences. A good way to do this is to rely on examples as they're described and, for ones that don't have examples, picture something that fits the general description! Luckily, here, most have examples.

Question prompt

The author mentions a 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

Answer choices

  1. A
    exemplify the style of Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    Incorrect. The collage artist was representational and political, while the Washington Color School involved "totally nonrepresentational" art (Lines 9-10). Gilliam was a member of that school, and the collage artist is contrasted with him.
  2. B
    point out the cause Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    Incorrect. At most, the passage suggests Gilliam might have felt animosity towards certain representative artists (Lines 12-21), but this answer goes too far in stating that there was a general animosity between these two groups. Even then, Gilliam believed that their work didn't leave room for nuance—it's probably too much to say that he felt animosity towards them.
  3. C
    establish that representational art Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    Incorrect. (Liens 36-39) The passage talks about public expectations in Paragraph 3, so the collage artist in Paragraph 2 can't serve as an example of that.
  4. D
    illustrate the kind of Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D matches the stem
    Correct. Question Type:
    Argument Structure

    Strategy Overview:
    Head back to that section and find out what the role of the collage artist was

    Answer Anticipation/Relevant Lines:
    Checking our note for Paragraph 2 as a whole, we can see that it's about Gilliam's motivation in creating art as well as comparing him to his African American contemporaries.

    Finding the collage artist, we can see that it's an example of something ("For example"). Looking at the statement immediately before that, it discusses how Gilliam found the work of his contemporaries to be too conservative, with little room for subtlety or artistic innovation.

    So the collage artist is an example of a contemporary that Gilliam believed was making art that was too conservative, not subtle, and not innovative—a style that he was reacting against (Line 13).

    Answer Explanation:
    (Lines 12-16) Paragraph 2 discussed Gilliam's motivation—a "reaction against" his contemporaries, who made art that was representational and explicitly political, exemplified by the collage artist. This answer is therefore correct.

    Key Takeaway:
    When an example is given, the passage will tell you what it's an example of. Check the context—both of the paragraph it's included in and the immediate area where it's brought up—and you should be able to anticipate an answer that's pretty close to what the correct one says.
  5. E
    show why Gilliam's art Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    Incorrect. (Lines 12-16) Gilliam was motivated by a desire to move away from the "explicit political" work of his contemporaries, so the example can't be used to show that his art was primarily political in nature.

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 5%
  4. D Credited 90%
  5. E 1%

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