PrepTest 153, Section 4, Question 23
Social historians have noted that European social and(452 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(20 more words not shown)
- Awary of its(3 more words not shown)
- Bdisdainful of its(5 more words not shown)
- Csympathetic but mindful(4 more words not shown)
- Dfearful of how(8 more words not shown)
- Eoptimistic that it(8 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
The nostalgia is the wish to recover the sense that history follows a logical, inevitable course. The author understands why that felt satisfying and why losing it produces discomfort. But the ending calls the hope for inevitability vain and suggests that accepting contingency would be more productive.
What we’re looking for
So we want an attitude that combines understanding the attraction with recognizing that the desired certainty won't be delivered.
Working the answers
- A
Political injustices appear earlier as one reason grand theories lost standing. The author doesn't connect the nostalgia itself with a fear of political repression. That imports a different concern into this attitude question.
- B
The author doesn't ridicule people for being sentimental or unoriginal. Acknowledging that the comfort cannot be recovered is different from treating the longing with disdain.
- CCorrect
The discussion of satisfaction and discomfort shows sympathy for what people have lost. The call to relinquish the “vain hope for inevitability” shows the limit: that longing won't produce the fully determined history people want. Both halves of the attitude fit.
- D
The author doesn't express fear that nostalgia will keep the old theories influential. Instead, the discomfort accompanying their decline might help people move toward a better perspective. The proposed response is to use that discomfort constructively, not warn about the old theories' prolonged power.
- E
This reverses the recommendation. The author hopes discomfort will restore attention to contingency, not limit it. Greater willingness to consider contingent events is the benefit the ending proposes.
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