PrepTest 156, Section 3, Question 19
In typical accounts of the beginnings of bebop—the(447 more words not shown)
According to the passage, which(14 more words not shown)
- AThey assert that(8 more words not shown)
- BThey represent bebop(10 more words not shown)
- CThey identify bebop(12 more words not shown)
- DThey overly idealize(5 more words not shown)
- EThey were themselves(4 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
Now we are asked what is true of the typical accounts, rather than what their supporters believe. The author directly evaluates those accounts in the final paragraph: their anti-commercial story idealizes artistic creation by overlooking commercial relationships.
What we’re looking for
That distinction matters. We can select a criticism the author makes even when the people telling the traditional story would reject it.
Working the answers
- A
These accounts portray bebop as a break from commercialism. Describing its originators as seeking commercial success reverses that portrayal.
- B
The classical modernist movement is used as a parallel, not as bebop's source. Similar explanations of two developments don't mean one movement grew out of the other.
- C
The account describes bebop as the culmination of a move away from commerce. It doesn't establish that bebop was the first jazz movement without strong commercial appeal. That claim would require a comparison with other movements that isn't supplied.
- DCorrect
The author says the anti-commercial account romanticizes the conditions under which artists produce their work (paragraph 4). It depicts artists as escaping the marketplace while neglecting the commercial system that allowed them to work as professionals. That is the idealization this answer describes.
- E
This is a claim about pressures shaping the historians' accounts themselves. The author discusses commercial relations shaping musical work; that doesn't establish that money or commercial pressure produced these particular historical accounts.
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