PrepTest 153, Section 4, Question 25
Social historians have noted that European social and(452 more words not shown)
The author introduces the concept(15 more words not shown)
- Asuggest why the(18 more words not shown)
- Bexplain why the(8 more words not shown)
- Cshow that the(17 more words not shown)
- Dquestion the applicability(10 more words not shown)
- Eargue that interest(12 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
What is cognitive satisfaction doing in this sentence? People no longer accept the grand theories' deterministic explanations, yet still long for the satisfaction provided by believing history is inevitable. The concept explains what people miss.
What we’re looking for
Keep that local job separate from the later recommendation. Here we are explaining the attraction and the resulting nostalgia, not yet arguing that a new kind of narrative explanation will work.
Working the answers
- A
The sentence tells us why the old outlook was appealing, not why inevitability is a vain hope. It also doesn't reject the possibility of a coherent story: the ending explicitly leaves room for narrative satisfaction without determinism.
- BCorrect
Grand theories offered a comforting sense of order. Losing faith in them did not remove the desire for that experience. Cognitive satisfaction therefore explains why their decline could produce nostalgia rather than simple relief at abandoning inadequate theories.
- C
The point is that the desire persists despite the theories' decline. People still long for that satisfaction. This answer substitutes declining interest for the continuing attraction the sentence describes.
- D
The sentence isn't evaluating narrative techniques or questioning whether they can handle unique events. Those words draw us toward the later proposal instead of the stated reason people miss determinism.
- E
No prediction about new narrative conventions appears here. The author is explaining a present longing for the old certainty, not forecasting that a new convention will cause interest in universal determinants to fade.
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