PrepTest 110, Section 4, Question 12
Tragic dramas written in Greece during the fifth(450 more words not shown)
The quotation at the end(16 more words not shown)
- AAeschylean drama helped(12 more words not shown)
- BAeschylean drama introduced(13 more words not shown)
- CAeschylean drama is(16 more words not shown)
- DAeschylean drama accurately(11 more words not shown)
- EAeschylean drama embodies(11 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
Barbu uses the plays as proof of an emerging view of people as free agents in Greek civilization. That is a move from fictional characters to the society that produced them. What must he believe about that connection?
What we’re looking for
It's tempting to say the plays introduced a new understanding. But let's be careful about whether they created that understanding or reveal that it existed.
Working the answers
- A
“Helped to initiate” says the dramas helped cause the new understanding. Barbu treats them as evidence of its emergence. They could reflect a development in society without having started it. We don't need the added causal claim.
- B
“Introduced” makes the same extra move. Showing an understanding in a play doesn't establish that the play brought that understanding into society.
- C
The modern Western world's view of motivation isn't discussed, much less traced to these plays as its original source. Barbu's conclusion concerns ancient Greece.
- DCorrect
If the plays establish how personal autonomy was perceived in Greek society, Barbu must treat them as accurately reflecting that perception. Otherwise, they would only tell us about fictional characters. This supplies the bridge his claim needs without making the plays the cause of the change.
- E
Again, we have no claim about the notion of freedom most familiar to the modern Western world. The fact that the issue may interest us today doesn't supply that connection.
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