PrepTest 159, Section 4, Question 10
Passage A In all games, particularly in athletic(484 more words not shown)
Passage A(267 more words not shown)
Passage B(225 more words not shown)
The author of passage A(13 more words not shown)
- Arefining the definition(4 more words not shown)
- Bembracing a position(4 more words not shown)
- Cproposing a specific(6 more words not shown)
- Dattempting to undermine(5 more words not shown)
- Eappealing to the(5 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
Our broad prediction was that both discussions compare sports with art. This question asks about how their arguments are developed, so we should also track whose ideas they use. A endorses Podhoretz's assessment of sports audiences. Gumbrecht builds his explanation around Kant's account of beauty.
Working the answers
- A
Neither argument refines a definition of what counts as a sport or another activity. Explaining how an activity is appreciated isn't the same as redefining it.
- BCorrect
A uses Podhoretz's view that sports audiences are discriminating and athletic excellence is relatively uncontroversial. Gumbrecht uses Kant's account of beauty and purposiveness. Each embraces another theorist's position as part of the argument.
- C
B gives examples of athletic actions, but that doesn't make this a method used by both. A doesn't present a particular sporting action as a counterexample to a widely accepted generalization.
- D
Neither writer sets out an analogy and attacks its force. Comparing sports and art doesn't automatically constitute an attempt to refute an analogy.
- E
B's examples may invite us to appreciate beauty, but A's argument is about knowledgeable audiences and standards, not the reader's personal experience of beauty. Simply discussing appreciation doesn't establish that both arguments appeal to that experience. Choice B has explicit support in both named theoretical sources.
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