PrepTest 154, Section 2, Question 2
The poet E. E. Cummings stood for the(35 more words not shown)
The argument's conclusion can be(10 more words not shown)
- ANot all poets(2 more words not shown)
- BMetaphor was essential(5 more words not shown)
- CThere can be(5 more words not shown)
- DPoetry cannot be(3 more words not shown)
- EE. E. Cummings(5 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What does any of this tell us about Cummings's work?
He opposed regimentation and standardization: imposing regular rules or making things conform to a common pattern. The author says that, in doing so, he opposed something essential to his own work. That is a pointed criticism, but we need the connection between his work and the thing he opposed.
The evidence gives us a chain. Metaphor requires literal language, and literal language involves regimentation. Accept those relationships for this question. If metaphor depends on literal language, and literal language depends on regimentation, metaphor depends on regimentation too.
But did Cummings use metaphor? More precisely, was metaphor essential to his work? We've been told what metaphor requires without being told why that requirement reaches Cummings's work. If metaphor played no essential role in his work, the chain wouldn't establish the conclusion about him.
What we’re looking for
The question asks us to make the conclusion follow. We want to attach Cummings's work to the beginning of that chain. Making metaphor essential to his work would also make its requirements essential to that work. Then his opposition to regimentation would be opposition to something his work needs.
Working the answers
- A
Whether all poets use metaphor doesn't tell us what Cummings's work requires. Some poets could avoid it while Cummings depended on it, or Cummings could be among those who avoided it. A leaves the important connection unsettled.
- BCorrect
Now the chain reaches his work: his work requires metaphor; metaphor requires literal language; literal language involves regimentation. Regimentation is therefore essential to the work he did, even though he opposed it. Notice why 'essential' matters. The conclusion isn't merely that Cummings sometimes used something associated with regimentation.
- C
This says literal language requires metaphor. The evidence already gives the dependency we need in the other direction: metaphor requires literal language. Adding C still doesn't establish that metaphor or literal language was essential to Cummings's work. It extends the discussion of language without connecting that discussion to this poet.
- D
Whether poetry can be regimented is different from whether something essential to this poet's work involves regimentation. D doesn't establish the missing connection. It also gives us a claim about poetry generally when the conclusion concerns the requirements of Cummings's work.
- E
This doesn't give us what we need. We want a reason that regimentation was essential to his work, not a statement denying that he used literal language. And the passage distinguishes metaphor from literal language while saying the former depends on the latter; we shouldn't simply treat the two as opposites.
More Sufficient Assumption questions
Learn the LSAT our way
Our platform drills Sufficient Assumption questions at your level and adjusts as you improve.