PrepTest 135, Section 3, Question 7
In the 1980s there was a proliferation of(441 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(30 more words not shown)
- AFew autobiographical works(26 more words not shown)
- BFew critically acclaimed(22 more words not shown)
- CMany autobiographies have(25 more words not shown)
- DSeveral nineteenth-century autobiographies(19 more words not shown)
- ESeveral multigeneric, nonautobiographical(31 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
The author claims that these writers revolutionized autobiography by redrawing its boundaries. To weaken that, challenge the significance or novelty of the changes. Evidence that earlier autobiographers had already used the supposedly boundary-breaking techniques would be particularly relevant.
What we’re looking for
We don't have to show that the books lack value. We need a reason to doubt this specific claim about their effect on the genre. That's different from showing that traditional autobiographies still exist or that other types of books also experiment.
Working the answers
- A
Few later books being recognized for effective linear prose doesn't undermine the claim that these writers expanded the available forms. It could fit a move away from that convention. Recognition alone also doesn't establish how the whole genre developed.
- B
This counts certain critically acclaimed books by Latina authors. It doesn't show that these collections failed to alter autobiography's boundaries. A small number of works could still make an important innovation.
- C
Expanding a genre doesn't require every later writer to abandon its older forms. Some conventional autobiographies can continue to appear even if new approaches become available. Their existence doesn't refute the claimed change.
- DCorrect
Nineteenth-century autobiographies predate these 1980s collections and already have mixed genres and multiple authors. That gives us earlier examples of the techniques used to support the revolution claim. Contemporary critics' unfamiliarity with those works doesn't erase the precedent. This weakens the claim of boundary-breaking novelty without proving that the Latina writers copied those books or had no influence of their own.
- E
These collections aren't autobiographies. Innovation in a different category doesn't establish that autobiography had already undergone the changes at issue.
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