PrepTest 127, Section 2, Question 10
Critic: The idealized world portrayed in romance literature(65 more words not shown)
The critic's conclusion follows logically(8 more words not shown)
- ASome characters in(8 more words not shown)
- BThe visions of(18 more words not shown)
- CIf a character(24 more words not shown)
- DIn romance literature(15 more words not shown)
- EBoth comedy and(16 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Let's unpack the categories before deciding that they cannot overlap. Romance presents an idealized world; satire presents a debased, or morally degraded, one. The major characters' moral qualities reflect those worlds. Picture admirable characters in the idealized setting and morally compromised characters in the degraded one.
Now we get a different distinction: comedy and tragedy require the major characters' moral qualities to change during the action. Change need not mean improvement. A character could become better or worse.
Why would that make comedy and tragedy incompatible with romance and satire? Couldn't a work be both a romance and a comedy, with characters whose moral qualities develop as the story proceeds? The argument hasn't said that reflecting a particular world prevents a character from changing.
What we’re looking for
We need an assumption that makes the conclusion follow. It must separate both comedy and tragedy from both romance and satire. A rule excluding moral change from romance and satire would do that: the change required by one set of genres would be forbidden by the other.
Working the answers
- A
Some characters being neither debased nor idealized doesn't establish that the major characters fail to reflect the portrayed world. Those exceptions could be minor characters. A also leaves open whether moral change can occur in romance or satire, so it doesn't establish the required separation.
- B
Changing the vision of the world in comedy or tragedy doesn't show that these works cannot also be romance or satire. We would still need a rule saying that romance and satire cannot portray such a changing world. B adds change on one side without establishing an incompatibility with the other.
- C
This specifies a particular change in a tragedy, from an idealized character to a debased one. It doesn't tell us that romance or satire prohibits that change. It also says nothing comparable about comedy, even though the conclusion excludes both genres.
- DCorrect
Romance and satire now exclude changes in characters' moral qualities. Comedy and tragedy require such changes in their major characters. A work cannot both require and forbid that same change, so neither comedy nor tragedy can belong to either of the other categories. This supplies the missing incompatibility.
- E
Adding a requirement that minor characters change doesn't establish what romance and satire allow. We already know comedy and tragedy require change in major characters. A further requirement on those genres still leaves us without a reason they cannot overlap with the others.
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