PrepTest 116, Section 1, Question 21

Working the answers

• A
  Correct

  Formalists say the author's intended meaning is “legible within the work” and critics should search for it. If responsible critics examine the same work for that meaning, we'd expect them to tend toward the same or similar interpretations. Tend to doesn't require every critic to reach exactly the same conclusion. It fits the unified view the formalists defend.

• B

  The claim about interpretations existing before their theory is made about reader-response theory, not formalism. B transfers that history to the other approach.

• C

  We aren't told what formalists would do when an author intended no particular meaning. Their stated goal doesn't establish that they would find no meaning of any kind in that hypothetical. That is an extra conclusion.

• D

  The writer admits some unfair applications to older literature, then defends continuing new insights. That doesn't support the claim that proper readings are rare without this contextual information.

• E

  Formalism existed when reader-response theory arose in reaction to it. But we aren't told it is much older, and nothing compares their numbers of followers. E adds both an unsupported degree and a popularity claim.