PrepTest 112, Section 2, Question 13
In Intellectual Culture in Elizabethan and Jacobean England,(438 more words not shown)
The author of the passage(12 more words not shown)
- Aillustrate the range(12 more words not shown)
- Billustrate the differing(15 more words not shown)
- Cillustrate the fact(17 more words not shown)
- Dcontrast a writer(21 more words not shown)
- Econtrast a writer(20 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
My first thought is that Milton and Newton show how difficult the scientific material can be for language specialists. Poetry is familiar territory; specialized science isn't.
What we’re looking for
But the question asks why the author makes this comparison, so let's look closely at what it tells us about the scholarship available on each writer.
Working the answers
- A
Newton's work is described as difficult, which makes this tempting. But having more help with Milton doesn't make his poetry inherently straightforward. A difficult poem can have excellent commentary. The comparison concerns the guidance scholars have supplied, not simply a scale from easy writing to hard writing.
- B
Both examples concern Latin writings. This isn't a comparison of Latin-language and English-language authors.
- C
This isn't the later comparison with Continental writers. Milton and Newton illustrate the different treatment of poetry and science within English intellectual culture.
- D
We aren't given this timeline of changing recognition. The amount of scholarly help available doesn't tell us when a writer's merit began to be appreciated.
- ECorrect
The historian finds “ample guidance” for Milton's Latin poetry but “little or none” for Newton's technical writing. That makes the point more precise than our initial prediction about difficulty: literary work receives attention from language scholars, while important scientific work lacks comparable help.
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