PrepTest 149, Section 4, Question 21
Literary critic: There is little of social significance(68 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(12 more words not shown)
- AAn artist who(28 more words not shown)
- BA novelist who(27 more words not shown)
- CA work of(14 more words not shown)
- DIf a novel(19 more words not shown)
- ENovels have social(18 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Why must I get inside the novelist's mind for the novel to have social significance?
The critic treats that as required, but hasn't given us the connection. We are told that entering the novelist's internal world requires experiencing it from the characters' moral perspective. That links two ideas. It still leaves the conclusion about social significance hanging.
There is another question about the sensational scenes. Their purpose may be to make us wonder what happens next. Does that mean readers can't also experience a character's moral perspective? The intended effect doesn't automatically establish everything a reader can take from a scene.
What we’re looking for
For a principle helping justify the argument, I'd focus on the first gap because it leads directly to the conclusion. We need a reason that access to the novelist's inner world matters to social significance. If that access is required, the critic has a connection between the alleged limitation of these novels and their limited significance.
Working the answers
- A
This cautions artists against assuming old methods still engage an audience's moral sensibilities. It doesn't tell us what makes a novel socially significant. Nor does the argument compare how well a particular method worked in the past with how well it works now. A doesn't supply the missing connection.
- B
This advises a novelist who wants readers to empathize with victims. The shared language about sensational scenes makes it sound relevant, but the conclusion isn't advice about producing empathy. We still need a reason that the novels have little social significance. B never connects that significance with the limitation the critic describes.
- C
Engaging an audience's moral sensibilities isn't the same as having the audience experience a character's moral perspective. A reader might have a strong moral reaction to a scene without adopting any character's viewpoint. C would require us to establish that these novels don't engage the audience's moral sensibilities, and the passage doesn't do that. It doesn't close the gap merely by mentioning social importance.
- D
This gives one way a novel can be socially significant: helping readers understand injustice from the victims' perspective. But a novel lacking that feature might be significant in another way. To support the critic's negative conclusion, we need a required condition for significance, not just one feature that would be enough to produce it.
- ECorrect
This makes access to the novelist's internal world a requirement for social significance: significance exists only to the extent that the novel allows that access. Now the critic's discussion of blocked access has a connection to the conclusion. E supplies the missing link I was looking for. It doesn't settle every question about whether sensational scenes truly prevent access, but it most helps justify why the critic thinks that supposed limitation matters.
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