PrepTest 154, Section 3, Question 10
Passage A The path a historical novelist has(486 more words not shown)
Passage A(209 more words not shown)
Passage B(285 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(11 more words not shown)
- APassage A describes(6 more words not shown)
- BPassage A outlines(13 more words not shown)
- CPassage A and(15 more words not shown)
- DPassage A and(15 more words not shown)
- EPassage A and(17 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
The arguments move in roughly the same direction. A says historical fiction needs invented details to create a good narrative. B says autobiography needs room for invention and false memories to convey a person's experience.
What we’re looking for
The contexts differ, and B voices an ethical reservation. But that reservation doesn't reverse B's practical conclusion: it still defends departures from factual accuracy. Look for parallel arguments, not a disagreement about whether those departures can be necessary.
Working the answers
- A
B doesn't reject the general approach A defends. It supports a similar allowance for falsehood in a different kind of writing.
- B
B isn't applying A's rules for historical fiction to one particular novel or historical episode. It develops a separate argument about autobiography. A broad similarity between arguments isn't the same as a general rule followed by a specific application.
- C
The particulars differ—historical novelists and Shakespeare in A, personal memories and autobiography in B—and the conclusions are broadly aligned. Both halves of this description are wrong.
- DCorrect
Each argues that a literary account of real lives can need departures from fact. Historical fiction and autobiography supply the “somewhat different contexts.” The arguments need not agree on every detail to be roughly parallel.
- E
B's ethical unease isn't a conflicting practical interpretation that leads it to prohibit invention. Both permit it for the kinds of writing they discuss. This answer exaggerates their difference into opposing applications.
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