PrepTest 146, Section 3, Question 24
For a work to be rightly thought of(83 more words not shown)
The statements above, if true,(8 more words not shown)
- AA work of(22 more words not shown)
- BA work of(20 more words not shown)
- CA work should(28 more words not shown)
- DA work of(13 more words not shown)
- EA work is(15 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A work doesn't become world literature just by mattering within one country's literary tradition. It must be taken up within the writer's own tradition and within traditions elsewhere. That is the basic idea underneath the passage's formal wording.
Now unpack what it means for another writer to use a work. One writer might think, 'That approach is excellent; I want to write something like it.' Another might think, 'That writing is so bloated that I want to avoid its mistakes.' A third might encounter something so unfamiliar that it prompts a new way of developing the home tradition. Admiration, rejection, and a response to something radically different can all play a role.
What we’re looking for
So the effect needn't be praise or imitation. The work can shape a tradition even by providing an example to avoid. For this supported-inference question, keep those uses and the requirement of reaching beyond one national tradition in view.
Working the answers
- A
Being received and interpreted isn't the same as being well received. The passage expressly allows a work to serve as a negative example. It also gives no rule requiring approval at home before readers elsewhere can approve of a work. A introduces a relationship between favorable reactions that we weren't given.
- B
The passage requires a work to be taken up at home and abroad, but it doesn't compare how much it offers each audience. A work could have a profound effect at home and a smaller effect elsewhere, or the reverse. B adds a ranking of value.
- C
Being more meaningful at home doesn't prevent a work from also affecting traditions elsewhere. The passage doesn't require equal meaning across audiences or greater meaning abroad. A difference in degree isn't the same as failing the requirement to reach beyond the home tradition.
- D
This changes the direction of influence. We are told about other traditions receiving and responding to the finished work. We aren't told that the writer must have drawn on foreign works when creating it. A work could originate entirely from the home tradition and later affect writers elsewhere.
- ECorrect
The account calls for a work to be received and interpreted within both the home tradition and external traditions. The described ways of using it all contribute to a tradition's development: providing a model, identifying something to avoid, or prompting refinement. A work affecting the development of only one tradition falls short of that international reach.
Simply being available in several countries wouldn't establish those effects. The relevant idea is that writers in more than one tradition take up the work in the ways the passage describes.
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