PrepTest 112, Section 1, Question 22
Any writer whose purpose is personal expression sometimes(25 more words not shown)
The conclusion can be properly(9 more words not shown)
- AWriters who sometimes(18 more words not shown)
- BWriters whose purpose(12 more words not shown)
- CNo writer who(20 more words not shown)
- DMost writers whose(16 more words not shown)
- EReaders who have(15 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Ambiguous words don't tell us what every reader needs in order to enjoy a poem.
The first two statements do fit together. Writers pursuing personal expression sometimes use words ambiguously, and every poet has that purpose. So poets sometimes use ambiguous words. But then we jump from the writer's language to the reader's enjoyment. We haven't been given a rule connecting those things.
I also want to question the idea that ambiguity necessarily prevents understanding. A reader might work through several possible meanings and settle on one. Or the reader might enjoy the uncertainty. Those possibilities are different, and the premises haven't told us which describes any particular reader.
What we’re looking for
The question asks for an assumption that makes the conclusion follow. We need a connection from the poets' ambiguous language to the claim about what their readers' enjoyment depends on. My first thought is to focus on ambiguity and precise understanding, but let's be careful: the conclusion isn't simply that understanding is impossible. It concerns whether enjoyment requires that understanding.
Working the answers
- A
Trying to understand and needing understanding for enjoyment aren't the same thing. Someone might make no effort to interpret a poem and get no enjoyment from it precisely because they don't understand it. A tells us about readers' efforts; it doesn't settle the condition their enjoyment depends on.
- B
What the writer cares about doesn't establish what the reader needs. A poet could be unconcerned about the audience while a reader still required a precise interpretation to enjoy the poem. B adds information about the writer's attitude, leaving the gap about readers intact.
- CCorrect
Every poet sometimes uses words ambiguously. C says that any writer who ever does so has no reader whose enjoyment depends on a precise understanding of the writer's meaning. Apply that rule to poets, and we get the stated conclusion about poetry readers.
We don't have to prove that ambiguous writing can never be understood. C gives the direct connection the argument needs: using ambiguous words rules out readers whose enjoyment requires precise understanding. It also doesn't say nobody enjoys poetry. Readers could enjoy it for reasons that don't require that understanding.
- D
This starts with writers whose readers already fit the description we want to establish, then says most of those writers are poets. It doesn't tell us that every poet belongs to that group. Some poets could be outside it, with readers whose enjoyment does require precise understanding. We need the rule to apply to all poets, not a statement about who makes up most of another group.
- E
This describes readers who do understand precisely and says their enjoyment comes from that understanding. It doesn't connect ambiguous language with the absence of readers who need such understanding. It could fit a situation in which a poetry reader needs to understand a poem to enjoy it—the very situation the conclusion rules out.
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