PrepTest 129, Section 2, Question 24
Sometimes one reads a poem and believes that(53 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(8 more words not shown)
- ADifferent readers will(18 more words not shown)
- BIf someone writes(14 more words not shown)
- CReaders will not(24 more words not shown)
- DAnyone reading a(15 more words not shown)
- EIf a reader(19 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A reader can think a poem contradicts itself. But what if the reader has misunderstood it?
The argument tells us that readers sometimes find contradictory ideas even in great poems. It also says that authors of great poems do not intend to communicate contradictions. From those two claims, it concludes that a poem's meaning cannot simply be what its author intends.
To get there, we need to move from what a reader believes the poem says to what the poem actually means. If the reader's interpretation contributes to the meaning, then the meaning can include contradictory ideas the author did not intend. But if the reader merely made a mistake, that interpretation does not establish any difference between the poem's meaning and the author's intention.
What we’re looking for
For the required assumption, I would look for the connection that treats the reader's perceived ideas as part of the poem's meaning. We should not equate the reader's interpretation with the author's intention; the argument is trying to show that meaning can go beyond intention.
Working the answers
- A
Readers do not need to disagree with one another for this argument to work. They could agree that a poem expresses contradictory ideas while the author intended no contradiction. The issue is whether the perceived ideas count as meaning, not how often readers disagree about the author's intentions.
- B
A great poem could express several consistent ideas. Intending no contradictory ideas does not mean intending only one primary idea. The argument depends on the difference between perceived contradiction and intended meaning, not a limit on how many ideas the author wants to express.
- C
This links agreement about meaning with agreement about intention. It does not establish that a reader's interpretation is part of the poem's meaning. The argument could have its mismatch between meaning and intention even when readers agree with each other, so it does not require C's rule about their disagreements.
- D
We do not need every reader to discern every intended idea. A reader might miss some intended ideas and still perceive a contradiction that the argument counts as part of the meaning. D's sweeping ability claim does not supply the needed link between a perceived idea and meaning.
- ECorrect
This makes an idea part of the poem's meaning whenever a reader believes the poem expresses it. Apply that rule to the stated case: a reader perceives contradictory ideas, so those ideas count as meaning. Yet the author of the great poem did not intend that contradiction. The argument now has its basis for separating meaning from authorial intention.
Without treating the reader's interpretation as meaning in this way, the author has not ruled out simple misreading. The reported perception alone would not challenge the view that a poem means what its author intends.
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