Reading comp PrepTest 153 · Section 4 · Question 22

Passage

Questions 22-27  .       Social historians have noted that European social  . and political thought of the nineteenth and early  . Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage SummaryTopic: Social Sciences

Paragraph 1
  • Paragraph note
    • A history of the approach to social/political thought (19th and early 20th centuries)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Social/political thought centered on "grand theories" that explained many events with general rules
    • Examples - Marxism (economic) and Freudianism (psychological)
Paragraph 2
  • Paragraph note
    • The love of "grand theories" has waned in recent years for several reasons
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • They were influential enough to be seen as hard-and-fast rules
    • These theories hurt by events that don't fit them, and being linked to failed or abusive governments
    • They worked at the time, but they no longer work
Paragraph 3
  • Paragraph note
    • A pivot to why "grand theories" were popular and thoughts on how to address that need with a new approach described by the author
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • They were popular because they made people feel as if history/life made sense ("historical inevitability").
    • We need something to address that need that doesn't have the problem of "grand theories"
    • Solution - An approach that focuses on contingency, unique details, "constrains" rather than "necessitates," and allows all possibilities without saying history is fully determined
Main Point:
Despite working when they were proposed, "grand theories" can no longer be seen to accurately describe the world, and we need to move to a view that includes historical contingency, perspective, and a lack of inevitability.

Key Lines:
Lines 1-5 - Introduce the background view that the Author is going to pivot away from
Lines 18-20 - The pivot to show that this view is no longer viable
Lines 37-40 - Introduces the problem that the Author is ultimately trying to solve in coming up with a new approach
Lines 42-50 - An overview of the new approach advocated for by the Author

Meta-Structure:
Old theory/New Theory
Problem/Solution

This passage combines these two structures, to bring up an old theory that has problems ("grand theories"), and then to pose the problem that needs to be addressed in order to create a new approach to the study of history. The Author then concludes with a general description of this new approach.

Last Thoughts:
The passage relies heavily in the first two paragraphs on the examples of Marxism and Freudianism, so we should expect some questions on that. The second paragraph also includes two reasons for the old theories to have fallen out of favor (events that don't fit the theories; association with failed governments), so we should expect questions there, too.

The last paragraph is a bit complex and nuanced, so we should expect there to be questions that play into the difficulty in distinguishing exactly what the Author is saying there. Knowing that it's a solution to how to incorporate what was good about the old theory (provide some type of story/sense into history) without falling into its problems (fully determined history) should help for questions that ask about it.

Question prompt

Which one of the 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

Social Science

Answer choices

  1. A
    Social historians argue that Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    Incorrect. (Lines 42-50) This answer has the social historians as the main viewpoint in the passage, whereas the Author stepped in to give her opinion throughout.
  2. B
    Grand theories were too Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    Incorrect. (Lines 24-27) First, this answer misses the entire point of the last paragraph that speaks to what a new approach to history could look like. But it also factually misrepresents the passage—Lines 24-27 state that the grand theories did adequately describe events up to the point when they were created. It was future events that showed them to be wrong.
  3. C
    Though seductive in their Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    Incorrect. (Lines 37-39) Similar to answer (B), this answer doesn't bring in the Author's view in the last paragraph about a new approach. Also similar to (B), it gets a detail wrong—in Lines 37-39, the Author states that current beliefs suggest there aren't any universal laws in history, and so this answer stating that the grand theories fail to account for universal truths is incorrect.
  4. D
    The decline of grand Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D matches the stem
    Correct. Question Type:
    Main Point

    Strategy Overview:
    Reiterate the Main Point as we outlined after reading the passage

    Answer Anticipation/Relevant Lines:
    While reading through a passage, you should be underlining or in some other way highlighting (even if just mentally) the places where the Author brings in her opinion. Putting these together will get you the main point.

    Here, we see her show up in Lines 18-20 to pivot away from an old view, Lines 37-40 to bring up what was good about the old view that needs to be incorporated into any new view, and Lines 42-50, where she describes what this new view consists of.

    Bringing all of those together, we ended up with our statement of the main point:

    Despite working when they were proposed, "grand theories" can no longer be seen to accurately describe the world, and we need to move to a view that includes historical contingency, perspective, and a lack of inevitability.

    Answer Explanation:
    (Lines 18-20; Lines 37-50) The Author states that grand theories have declined because viewing history as fully determined is no longer viewed as correct, and "perhaps" a new view that "restore[s] us to the contemplation of historical contingency" will take over. This answer reflects the Author's view of the old approach, and it brings in a key concept from the new one she proposes, making it the correct answer.

    Key Takeaway:
    We're going to focus on answer (A) for this takeaway. The Main Point should be through the lens of the Author. If she's present in the passage, she has to be present in the answer. As such, any answer that attributes the argument to another person or group is likely wrong (unless the Author's point was to attribute an argument to that person/group).
  5. E
    Though grand theories neglected Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    Incorrect. (Lines 37-39; Lines 53-56) First, as with answer (B), this one gets a detail wrong in claiming that the grand theories ignore universal truths. Rather, they apply universal truths that are no longer believed to exist. Second, this answer ties narrative satisfaction to the grand theories which, while the Author does suggest that this was a benefit of those theories, this answer misses the point that she makes that this should be ported to a new approach. In short, this answer is silent to her recommendation in the last paragraph, which was a central part of her argument.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 9%
  2. B 6%
  3. C 7%
  4. D Credited 74%
  5. E 5%

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