Reading comp PrepTest 140 · Section 4 · Question 6

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 passage suggests that 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
    Artists need not be Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    Incorrect. (Line 3) Gilliam being associated with a particular school suggests that he was, in part, associated with some limitation on style—those that would fit him into the Washington Color School. Ironically, in stating that representational art is too restrictive, he's limiting himself to not using that art!
  2. B
    The images portrayed in Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    Incorrect. (Lines 43-44) While his unsupported canvas pieces were inspired by real-life images, there's no sign that his other works were inspired that way.
  3. C
    Artists ought to produce Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    Incorrect. (Lines 36-39) Gilliam refused to create explicitly political art.
  4. D
    The Color Field style Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D matches the stem
    Correct. Question Type:
    Must Be True

    Strategy Overview:
    Review what we know of Gilliam's viewpoint

    Answer Anticipation/Relevant Lines:
    The passage was generally about Gilliam and his work, but Gilliam's own views were highlighted only a few times, mainly throughout Paragraph 2.

    There, we learn that his own work was in part a reaction against the representational and explicitly political work of his contemporaries (Lines 12-16). He felt this work was too conservative (Line 17), not allowing for subtlety or innovation (Lines 19-21). He participated in the Color Field movement because it allowed him to be "more expressive" and "more evocative" of the human experience (Lines 30-33).

    Let's find an answer lining up with this view.

    Answer Explanation:
    (Lines 30-35) Gilliam rejected the representational art of his contemporaries and aligned with the Color Field movement in order to work in a form that was "more evocative of the complexity of human experience," so this answer is correct.

    Key Takeaway:
    We see yet another question grounded in a viewpoint. Always be sure to note the various viewpoints as they show up in an RC passage, as you can expect that they'll be asked about!
  5. E
    The public's expectations concerning Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    Incorrect. (Lines 36-39) Gilliam refused to conform to the public's expectations of what his work should be.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 31%
  2. B 4%
  3. C 2%
  4. D Credited 63%
  5. E 1%

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