Once the passage brought up Platonism, it became a safe bet that there would be a question asking for its definition: both because the term comes up at the end of the second paragraph without an explicit definition, while also giving an implicit definition in the prior sentence. That’s actually a fairly common writing tactic to avoid making the introduction of a term feel pedestrian.

Going back to where Platonism is mentioned, the second paragraph states that “few would seriously defend the proposition that the diesel engine has always existed and needed only to be discovered. In reference to technology, Platonism is considered an extreme philosophical stance.” If we subtract the part of that second sentence that refers to the diesel engine, there’s a perfectly good definition there which has to refer to Platonism. So we need an answer which says something about things which have “always existed and needed only to be discovered,” as opposed to what the passage as a whole argues about technological engineering: that it is about producing fictions, or making things that don’t yet exist in the world.

I don’t see anything in that second paragraph about “expression of the human spirit,” so this one is wrong.

Again, the key term in this answer choice—cause and effect—doesn’t appear in the second paragraph in any major way, so I can eliminate B.

“Preexistence” sounds a lot like “always existed,” so C matches my prediction enough to be the right answer.

This one is tricky because it vaguely echoes the last paragraph, but this does not factor into the first mention of Platonism, which has to be where the definition of Platonism has to be. This choice is a trap meant to see if you’ll let a point that comes later in the argument obscure what the question is asking you about.

By laying out a definition of “Copernican revolution” in the question stem, this question is trying to hide the fact that it is just another definition question. Whenever you apply a term to a different phenomenon, you need to at least slightly redefine the term to fit its new context, so this question functions in exactly the same way as Q1. The term “Copernican revolution” ends a sentence and so gives no space for a definition, which means the definition has to precede it. The prior sentences describe how people and objects interact. At first, when a project is being designed, “people influence the object.” But once the project leads to an actual engineered object in the world, “it is people, outside their offices, who are influenced by” the object. That reversal sounds like a “revolution,” so I’m looking for an answer choice which captures this shift from humans affecting a thing to that thing affecting humans.

The definition of “Copernican revolution” only lightly talks about the reality of what is created, so A is already suspicious. More importantly, while earlier parts of the passage contrast the reality of engineering principles with those of scientific findings, by the fourth paragraph the argument has moved on to talk about people and objects. Since A doesn’t mention this essential part of that final paragraph, it has to be incorrect.

I don’t see anything about illusions when the Copernican revolution is brought up, so I can eliminate B.

This is a trick answer choice: one meant to test how closely I’ve read the passage. The passage overall says something favorable about technological projects, even though they are different from natural ones. But there is no way that the passage argues that they are equivalent; if anything, the passage primarily argues that they are different. As the main idea goes, technological projects differ from natural sciences because the former is fiction that gets made into fact, while the latter was always fact that needs to be discovered. Moreover, the passage doesn’t say anything about what it would even mean to be “equivalent to a natural object,” so C has to be wrong.

The first part of this answer choice sounds exactly like the sentence that precedes the mention of “Copernican revolution” in paragraph 4: “people influence the object. But once the project is realized and the object real, it is people […] who are influenced by it.” That’s more than enough to suggest that D is correct.

This question is difficult because it doesn’t obviously relate to the passage; there is nothing about cost in the arguments. So I need to go into these answer choices by holding fast to my sense of the main idea as it pertains to the situation the question describes. I can largely ignore the specifics of the first sentence, since that’s way too specific for the test to fairly ask me questions about it; all I need to know is that the question is proposing a technological solution that “would eliminate traffic problems.” Because the passage largely praises technological engineering, I’m looking for an answer that will therefore advocate for the new transportation system. But that’s likely not going to be enough to help me find the right answer; I need to also integrate into my prediction what approach the passage advocates for technological development. The passage’s main idea helps with this: the idea given in paragraph one about how “engineers produce fictions.” My right answer will therefore also say something about fiction.

I don’t see anything about patience in the passage, so I can eliminate A.

While the question is about expense, nothing in the passage talks about costs, so B has to be wrong.

Even though the passage is about engineering, inconvenience or even use cases are not mentioned in the passage. The passage is more concerned with how technological projects are created than it is with what those projects actually do. So C is incorrect.

This is a bit of a weak answer choice, which further raises the difficulty of the question. I would have to choose D by virtue of the process of elimination, but I could also confirm D to be correct by recognizing that “imagination” sounds a lot like “fiction,” since fiction, by virtue of not being real, is a product of the imagination. So D has to be correct.

This could have been a straightforward passage reference question, but that “NOT” throws a bit of a wrench into things, since it tells me that three of the four answer choices will be mentioned by the passage. That said, most “NOT” questions are vulnerable to the same approaches. The three wrong answers will be compatible with the main idea, while the one correct answer will either contradict it or not be strongly related to it. So the quickest way to answer this is to go through and eliminate anything which is in line with the main idea about technological engineering as fiction. Or, I can try to be as certain as possible by checking each answer choice against the passage to see what is and is not mentioned.

This is a great candidate for the right answer. Imagination is only heavily discussed in relation to technological discovery; scientific discovery is only mentioned in the passage to better define technological discovery through contrast. Given that this is a pretty difficult question type, though, I might double check the rest of the answer choices to see if they are mentioned in the passage.

I know that this is in line with the passage’s main idea about technology being fictional, since one of the entailments of that idea is that tech is flexible: that in development, it doesn’t need to adhere to what already is the case, as scientific discovery does. If I’m unsure, I could spend time and confirm it is in paragraph 4, but I don’t really need to. B has to be incorrect.

I know this is in line with the main idea because it resonates with the notion that tech engineering is fiction, since “fiction” is by definition something that isn’t real (and so isn’t realized). This is also mentioned at the end of paragraph 3, which states that while tech engineers’ projects are “will either remain a possibility in a file or be transformed into an object.” So C is also wrong.

I know this is mentioned in paragraph 1, but also it’s in line with the main idea: engineers work in fiction, scientists with fact. That means D has to be wrong, and A correct.

The broad subject of this question stem tells me that this is another simple main idea question. All I need to remember is that the passage equates engineering projects with novel writing and fiction. So the three wrong answers will discuss something creative, while the one right answer will say something that’s more fact-based or analytical.

The word “imagining” here is more than enough to suggest that A is in line with the passage, and so has to be incorrect.

Since B mentions facts and doesn’t suggest that those facts will be used creatively, I know B goes against the passage and so is the correct answer.

“Creation” here feels in line with creativity, so I can eliminate C.

Since this is also creative, D has to be incorrect.

Q6 gives me new information, so I know I need to figure out how it resonates with the passage. I know that “words and symbols” are discussed in the last paragraph. This is unfortunately the densest part of the passage, though, so instead of going back and trying to parse out what that paragraph articulates about “words and symbols,” I’m better off relating this moment to the main idea. I know that “words and symbols” are raised as one of the ways to understand the flexibility experienced by engineers when using their imagination: one of the ways that their work is “fictional” and not bound by facts. The question stem states that “people tend to respond to words and symbols as if they were things to which they refer,” which sounds a lot like being bound to facts: to things of the world. So I am looking for an answer choice that says the author would challenge what the social engineers say.

This is exactly what I predicted, since having to “repeatedly overcome” something is to challenge it. A also has the benefit of being in line with the passage argument, insofar as it suggests that engineers have to push the boundaries of what is in order to create what is possible. I would choose A and move on.

B is designed to trick me; if I don’t have a strong enough grasp of the main idea, B looks attractive because it plays on our preference for reconciliation: for thinking that reconciliation is a good thing. When a choice raises an idea we think is good, we will tend to choose if it we don’t have a better reason for picking any other answer choice. In this case, though, there isn’t enough information in the question stem to speak to how scientists approach their studies, since “words and symbols” are exclusively used when describing how engineers do their work. That’s enough for B to be incorrect.

I know the passage does not discuss the “failure to honor” engineers, so C doesn’t make enough contact with the passage to be correct.

D is also incorrect because I know the passage doesn’t discuss overemphasizing plans and models; that’s too specific for what this passage is doing. D is only attractive because it feels vaguely critical of the passage, which the claim in the question stem definitely is. But it’s always important to confirm that a negative answer choice disagrees with an actual part of the passage to avoid wrong answers like this one.

This question asks me to understand the way an argument functions in a specific part of the passage. In this case, I know from the first two paragraphs that the Galileo-Diesel distinction is rooted in the distinction between natural science and technological projects, and how the former is fictional while the latter is factual. So I just need to find an newer which reflects this oppositional relationship.

I can eliminate A because it contradicts the passage. The first part about natural designs is simply not mentioned anywhere, while the second half goes against what the passage says about technology being flexible because it is fictional: because it is not wholly depend on the world that is.

This is a great option for the right answer. It captures the oppositional relationship between natural science (planetary orbit) and technological projects (the design of an engine), and it suggests that natural science is fact based and limited (predetermined) while the latter is fictional (creative). B has to be correct.

I can eliminate C because the passage articulates an oppositional relationship between scientists and engineers, while C suggests a cooperative one.

D is tricky because the passage does mentioned that the engine followed known principles in paragraph 2. And this relationship is oppositional. But the passage never clearly suggests that Galileo produced new knowledge when discovering the phases of Venus, so D has to be incorrect.

This is a kind question to start with, since it helps me confirm if I’ve read the passage properly. I know that the main idea is about how knowledge gained from business—specifically the targeting of niche populations—can help with public health. So I just need to eliminate every answer choice which is at all related to this argument.

That links public health (“health messages”) with business (“products”), so I can safely eliminate A.

This is just another way of saying that public health can work with “niche” populations, so B is also in line with my understanding of the main idea. I can safely eliminate it.

I should be suspicious of C because it doesn’t have anything to do with niche audiences. If I have a strong grasp of the passage, I should also know that the first two paragraphs specifically oppose the approach the passage advocates—targeting niche audiences—with looking for blockbusters. Since C therefore goes against the main idea of the passage by suggesting that there is something good about blockbuster approaches it has to be the correct answer.

This is less obviously related to the main idea than the other wrong answer choices, but “unequal access” is given in the passage as one of the challenges that comes with targeting niche populations (second half of paragraph 4). D therefore has to be incorrect.

If I annotated the passage correctly, I should know that the MIYO system is mentioned in the last paragraph as evidence for how the internet can help public health overcome many of the challenges associated with targeting niche population subgroups. So I’m looking for an answer choice which suggests that the use of the internet might not be helpful for public health officials.

It’s actually difficult to determine what effect A would have on the passage argument. Since the passage is all about the targeting of subgroups, it certainly would be very helpful if MIYO was used by individuals, but the passage doesn’t offer me a good way to understand the effects of being used by organizations instead of individuals. That’s enough to make A incorrect, since the right answer has to definitively and obviously weaken the argument. If I can’t figure out what effect an answer choice has on the argument, it’s definitely not weakening it.

B might sound like a weakener since it is not advocating for the use of the internet, but B is actually incorrect because it’s not directly affecting the argument at all. For B to be correct, the last paragraph would have to say that the internet is the only way for public health to succeed. But MIYO and other internet-based solutions can still “help to create evidence-based public health solutions,” as the question stem says, and be just one of many other solutions. B is a good example of a trickier wrong answer to a weakener, so always be sure to confirm that the answer you think is correct both directly affects a part of the passage argument, and affects it in the way the question stem asks.

C is another tempting wrong answer choice, making this one of the more difficult questions in the set. I know that the first two paragraphs set up an opposition between blockbuster interventions and targeting niche audiences, which is what the MIYO system is meant to do. But the point of the MIYO system is not to discourage people from using blockbuster interventions, but to show how an alternative approach to public health can work. Since C distorts the passage argument, it cannot weaken it, so C has to be incorrect. Also, blockbuster solutions stop being mentioned in the passage after paragraph 2, so C is also wrong by virtue of not being relevant to the part of the passage that the question stem is directly asking about.

D has to be correct by virtue of the process of elimination, but one might not choose it because it sounds a bit like A or B. Just as B states that internet solutions like MIYO are “not the only way” to do successful public health interventions, D draws attention to what systems like MIYO “alone cannot provide”: that there may be other solutions needed to successfully target niche populations. But D is the correct answer because there is a difference between simply saying that there are multiple correct ways to do something (B) and claiming that there are insufficiencies in a specific approach. If there are challenges “that digital products and information alone cannot provide,” then that decreases “the likelihood that the MIYO system” will help public health officials with targeting niche populations. That’s enough for me to know that D weakens the passage argument, so I would choose it and move on.

The test will often have easier questions follow difficult ones, so it’s no surprise that after Q9’s difficult weakener, we get a fairly straightforward main idea question. The first sentence of the question stem is directly in line with the main idea, which advocates for targeting niche populations. So the right answer will mention something about strengthening the main idea.

A is basically a restatement of the main idea, since “the prevailing approach to improving population health” is the use of “broadly targeted approaches.” Since an argument in line with the main idea has to support it, A is correct.

The passage never argues that Anderson’s approach will be of limited value, so B cannot be correct.

C doesn’t make sense because it’s not clear how to relate broadly targeted approaches with the MIYO system, since the MIYO system is all about targeting niche populations. Since C doesn’t make contact with the information in the question stem, it has to be incorrect.

Given how B and C were fairly easy to eliminate, D might give one pause, especially because it points to a very specific part of the passage: the end of paragraph 4. It might be tempting to double check that part of the passage and see if the first sentence in the question stem actually relates to that part of the passage. Furthermore, since the “critique of local public health organizations” in paragraph 4 is raised as a possible problem with targeting niche populations, D could also technically be seen as a strengthener by virtue or attacking a possible weakness in the main idea. But D is incorrect because there is no clear relationship between the claim in the question stem about “broadly targeted approaches” and the “funding, capacity, and infrastructure” of local public health organizations; those limitations are raised in the passage regarding the problems with a niche approach, and say nothing about how effective those organizations are with broad targeting. So D ends up being wrong for the same reason that C is: because it’s not clear how to relate it to the information in the question stem.

While this question stem seems vague, that vagueness actually limits what the test can fairly ask about. The right answer will have to be related to the main idea in some way, so I just need to find an answer choice which is both in line with the main idea, and is assumed—that is, not directly stated—by the passage.

This is a good candidate for the correct answer because I know that the last paragraph is all about how MIYO could help public health programs better target smaller populations. More importantly, the description of MIYO is an example of the use of the internet, which is given directly after the author raises concerns regarding the inefficiencies of local organizations. That proximity implies that the author believes that programs like MIYO could address the problems faced by local organizations, without directly stating such, so A has to be correct.

This is not in line with the main idea since it doesn’t strongly advocate for focusing on population subgroups, so I’m already suspicious of this choice. I can also confirm that it’s stated in the last sentence of the third paragraph: “Focusing on vulnerable populations could work to complement, rather than replace, a population approach.” So B has to be wrong.

C is immediately incorrect because it goes against the passage argument by suggesting that there is something wrong with internet-based approaches to public health. Without at least an implicit critique in the last few paragraphs, there’s no way that C can be correct.

I know that difficulties with targeting specific subgroups are brought up in paragraph 4: “Creative effective, tailored health resources for this near-infinite number of combinations of subgroups and health issues is a daunting task.” That’s more than enough of a reason for me to eliminate D.

This question risks taking a ton of time, since it seems like there’s nothing to do beyond just checking each answer choice to see if it is mentioned in the paragraph that discusses the internet (paragraph 5). But since the arguments about the internet are brought up in order to support the author’s main point, I can hope that the wrong answers will be ones in line with that main point, while the one right answer will be a more random answer choice.

Paragraph 5 implies that the “distribution of niche products” is aided when “consumer risk” is lowered, and it states that one way to lower consumer risk is to give people the option of sampling products. That means that A helps support the main idea, which makes A incorrect.

B feels like the right answer because convenient product purchasing doesn’t analogize well with the arguments about targeting niche populations. In other words, I don’t know what convenience has to do with what the author argues with regards to the internet. But B could be tempting because people are more likely to buy products that are more convenient to purchase, and that might make niche populations more willing to accept targeted health initiatives. So I might wait to see if C and D are incorrect before choosing B.

Since “custom-made” products are more likely to suit more specific populations, C feels in line enough with the passage argument to make it an incorrect answer. It’s also directly mentioned in paragraph 5: “the ability to customize a product to a user’s needs or preferences can increase its appeal.”

Given that accessibility is raised as a problem with targeting niche populations, this answer choice is in line enough with the main idea for me to eliminate D (and so choose B). I can also confirm that D just restates the first sentence of paragraph 5: “The Internet has been invaluable in facilitating the distribution of niche products, making it easy for consumers to find niche products.”

Paragraph 4 stands out in my understanding of the passage because it is the one that raises concerns with targeting niche populations: specifically, that there can be so many different populations that it can be difficult to target them all. Such a specific mention of “migrant farm workers” has to be in line with that idea, so the right answer must be too.

I can safely eliminate A even though it is as critical of the main idea as paragraph 4 seems to be. I know the “long tail approach” is what the passage defines as targeting niche populations, but the paragraph doesn’t define some groups as being more difficult to reach than others; it instead explains how the sheer number and variety of niche populations is a problem.

B resembles what I’m looking for, since it emphasizes the “range” of populations that have to be targeted. I can choose it and move on.

I can eliminate C because I know that paragraph 4 is a critical paragraph. It is arguing against something, while C describes an argument for something.

D is also incorrect because it isn’t sufficiently critical. It doesn’t raise any concerns about the long tail approach, nor does it say anything about problems associated with the range of different populations.

This question asks me to assess how a new piece of information impacts the passage. I know the passage advocates targeting niche populations because there are problems with the current approaches to public health: approaches which focus on solutions that serve the broader population. So my task is to figure out what that has to do with “community recreational facilities and lighted sidewalks.” These are both solutions that serve the broader population; a community recreational facility, by definition, serves the community, and lighted sidewalks are not just there for specific people; even a visitor to a street benefits from them. But if poorer people have less access to these broad solutions, that suggests that the author has a point regarding how broad solutions might not benefit specific population groups (the poor). Since I know this is an argument the passage makes in favor of its main idea, the right answer should mention something about supporting the need to improve access to resources.

I don’t see any obvious way that the information in the question stem would challenge the main idea, and A doesn’t resemble what I’m looking for since it doesn’t say anything about supporting the passage. I can eliminate this answer choice.

I can choose B with some security since it mentions supporting the passage, but if I wanted to be safe I could check the other answer choices to just confirm that there are no other answer choices which also support the passage.

I can eliminate C because it doesn’t say anything about supporting the passage.

D complicates things by also mentioning strengthening the passage, but I can safely eliminate it because it takes too much effort to relate the information in the question stem to the “funding, capacity, and infrastructure of local organizations.” The question stem brings up questions of access, and not the specific point about whether or not local organizations can handle the work of targeting niche populations. D has to be incorrect, then, and B has to be correct.

Given that the term is in a foreign language and is defined in the passage, I should have expected there to be a question about this. Luftmenschen is mentioned in paragraph 1, but the definition given—“people who ‘lived on air’”—isn’t especially helpful. I have to pick up on what this term is an example of: the preceding idea about cities being “big idea labs.” So I’m looking for an answer choice which mentions that luftmenschen are people who primarily work with ideas, and especially people who work with ideas instead of making things.

Ideas are mentioned in this answer choice, but A introduces a very specific distinction that doesn’t really exist in the passage: that between valuing something and having ideas of that thing’s type. That’s enough to tell me that I can safely eliminate A.

Nothing about ideas here, so I can get rid of B.

That fits my prediction nicely, since “theoretical” here is a synonym of ideas, and C suggests that luftmenschen are less comfortable with making things than they are with imagining things. So C is correct.

Nothing about ideas here either, so D is incorrect.

Another useful question for orienting myself to the passage. I know that the first paragraph articulates a way of understanding cities as “big idea labs,” and this view is “partly due to the work of urban studies theorist Richard Florida.” So the right answer will say something about providing a perspective on cities.

The passage doesn’t give me a clear idea of how popular Richard Florida is, so I can safely eliminate A.

That’s almost a direct quote from the first paragraph when Richard Florida is introduced; to say the theory about cities as “big idea labs” is “partly due” to Florida is to say that he popularized that theory. So B has to be correct.

C is primarily here to test if I’m able to distinguish between speakers in the passage. The author mentions that Florida’s theory is limited; Florida himself does not. So C has to be incorrect.

D is incorrect for the same reason C is: because the passage doesn’t clearly suggest that Florida uses the term luftmenschen.

Another nice and straightforward question. I know Richard Cohen is mentioned in paragraph 2 as evidence for the paragraph’s idea: that even as New York City becomes more of a fashion hotspot, actual fashion manufacturing has all but disappeared. So I need to find an answer choice which mentions this.

This is a choice that’s trying to tempt me by contorting passage information. The passage states that Cohen is a second-generation owner of a clothes manufacturing business, but the passage itself does not really focus on his business’s family-owned status, so I can safely eliminate A.

Like A, B takes a detail from the passage and then distorts it by suggesting that it is central to the passage argument. Cohen is described as a “unionized pleater,” but the passage is focused on ideas and the creation of a culture industry, and not on the effects of unionization. I can safely eliminate B

This is a trickier answer choice because the first paragraph argues that cities aren’t limited to idea generation: that they are also sites of local manufacturing. But while that somewhat sounds like C, C has to be incorrect because paragraph 2 doesn’t say anything about the breadth of businesses that the New York garment district once had. The passage only mentions fashion design and manufacturing; anything else is out of the passage scope.

Though this is worded in a challenging way, D has to be correct: both via the process of elimination, but also because it matches my prediction. Cohen is given as evidence that manufacturing is disappearing from New York, which is essentially what D means when it mentions “constriction” in the garment district.

Based on the passage, which factor(s) was(were) likely to have influenced the size of New York’s garment district? This is a broad question, but one that gets at what eventually becomes the central question of the passage, as given in paragraph 3: “The question then, is not so much why the garment industry in New York City has shrunk, but rather why there continues to be a garment district at all.” That means that the right answer will have to be in line with the main idea: that creative industries benefit from having similar businesses around each other, and that this can happen in spite of declines in local manufacturing of whatever those ideas produce.

1. Great and unanticipated increases in manufacturing by competitor countries bumped the United States out of the lead. I can eliminate I because nothing in the passage focuses on international manufacturing competition.
2. E-mail and inexpensive long-distance phone calls made it less necessary to be in close physical proximity to others in the industry. This is in line with the passage argument, insofar as it serves as a reason why the garment district might have shrunk. So the right answer will likely contain II.
3. Flights to and from the United States increased in frequency and speed, while simultaneously decreasing in price. This is a tough one because I eliminated an earlier answer choice that mentions price, but this is actually in line with paragraph 2. That paragraph directly discusses the New York City garment district: “advances in communications and transportation diminished New York City’s inherent geographic advantage in manufacturing.” Since III mentions transportation, it is also going to be correct.

A is incorrect because I is incorrect.

B is incorrect because III is also correct.

C is incorrect because I is incorrect.

D has both answers I’m looking for, so I can choose it and move on.

This is a technical question that’s asking about the form of an argument, so there’s really nothing to do but re-read paragraph 4 and try to understand how the author uses Florida. In that paragraph, there doesn’t appear to be any notable tactics at play when Richard Florida is introduced. But the sentence after that—which is used to explain Florida’s ideas—does involve a rhetorical technique. When the author says that “Just as neuroscientists speculate that higher intelligence correlates with the number of network connections between neurons in the brain and the sped with which they communicate, the cities that function best are those with the “highest velocity” of ideas, and the most efficient and robust links between people,” that “just as” signals that the author is deploying an analogy: is explaining one idea by using a simpler or more illustrative example that functions in a similar way. The right answer will therefore likely mention an analogy.

Given the difficulty of this question—since it demands that I might need some basic sense of rhetoric—it’s not surprising that the test would reward my knowledge by placing the right answer first. I can choose A and move on.

A counterargument would be signaled by a contrast word, like “but” or “however.” Since that doesn’t happen when Florida is discussed in paragraph 4, I can eliminate B.

This is a tough one, because one might think that the neuroscientists are an example of what Florida describes. But since Florida isn’t talking about the brain, the neuroscientists aren’t an example of Florida’s argument, so C has to be incorrect.

A paradox is a set of terms that feel like they should contradict each other, but don’t. I don’t see any apparent opposites raised in that paragraph, so I can safely eliminate D.

Another potentially time-consuming question. The question stem doesn’t tell me much, and the answer choices suggest this will be an analogy question: one that asks me to apply the logic of the passage to different situations. The only way to answer this kind of question is to have a firm grasp on the main idea—that creative industries thrive when they have similar businesses around them—and to eliminate any answer choice that fits that description.

The passage is all about the benefits of community between companies in the same industry. Since A talks about a “reclusive” writer—a writer who wants to be alone—A doesn’t have anything to do with community, and so must be the correct answer.

An academic conference brings people together so they can share ideas and advance scholarship collaboratively. That sounds a lot like the main idea, so I can eliminate B.

C also suggests that musicians benefit from community with other musicians; otherwise, why send them all to a summer program together? That’s enough to make C incorrect.

D also describes people in the same industry being in the same area together—in this case, the art industry—so D has to be incorrect.

Robert Lucas is mentioned almost in passing in the passage, so it wouldn’t hurt to at least refresh my memory of what he says: “If we postulate only the usual economic forces […] cities should fly apart.” What economic forces would make it difficult to live in a city? The next sentence actually elaborates: “Why would young designers live in New York when they could live more comfortably in other cities with much lower costs of living?” So the right answer will likely mention how expensive it is to live in a city.

This is the author’s main idea, but it’s not a claim the author directly attributes to Lucas, so A has to be incorrect.

B matches my prediction by bringing up expense, so it must be correct.

C sounds a lot like B since it also mentions cost, but C is a worse answer choice because it’s not talking about the expenses themselves, but “the factors” that make things more expensive. Since that’s one level of abstraction beyond what B does, and since I can only have one right answer, C has to be incorrect.

D also vaguely mentions cost, but this time in the wrong way. Paragraph 3 isn’t asking about people preferring new items, so I can safely eliminate it.

I know that the passage as a whole argues that the conventional depiction of blues’ musicians is as poor individuals, so I should be able to eliminate choices which depict wealth. At the same time, a NOT question like this always raises the possibility that I’ll have to check the passage to see if an answer choice isn’t mentioned in the passage: specifically, that I’ll have to go to paragraph 2, when those “unconventional representations” are actually discussed.

These are associated with wealth, so I can safely eliminate A.

Professional photo shoots are expensive, so I can eliminate B.

This one is a bit suspicious, since one doesn’t need to be rich to be in elegant surroundings, but being wealthy does increase the likelihood that one will be in fancy places. So I don’t quite have enough to eliminate or choose C yet.

Valuable instruments also sound wealthy.

Because I don’t have an obvious correct answer, I need to double check to see what choices are mentioned in the passage. A is brought up in the second paragraph, and the paragraph goes on to mention that Johnson’s photo was taken in a professional studio, so B is wrong. Waters’ guitar is mentioned, so D has to be incorrect. That leaves C, which is a tricky answer choice because surroundings is definitely discussed in the next paragraph, but only when discussing conventional representations of blues artists. C has to be the right answer.

“Niche tourists” is such a particular phrase that I know it has to be referring to the last paragraph: “The new blues tourism is an example of niche tourism that capitalizes on the efforts of communities to accentuate their cultural heritage in an effort to increase their revenue from tourism as an industry.” I also know that this is part of the author’s main idea: that this version of tourism is built on a faked “authentic” image of what blues is. So if the new information in the question stem says that “niche tourists are often very knowledgeable about the subjects of their tourism,” then wouldn’t those tourists know that the “niche tourism” industry is actually depicting something that isn’t fully true? That should be enough to find an answer.

A works as a correct answer, since it matches my prediction by suggesting that these tourists would see through the attempts at “authenticity” that these museums provide.

It’s hard to see how the new information in the question stem would say anything about contorting the truth to fit what tourists think is authentic, since the knowledgeable niche tourists would know enough to distinguish what is truly authentic from what is being presented to them as authentic. That’s enough for me to eliminate B.

C has to be incorrect because the information in the question stem relates too much to the passage for it to have no effect.

Information about tourists doesn’t suggest anything about the work communities do, so I can safely eliminate D.

The new quote in the question stem is in line with the passage argument. To say that museums can “only” do something is to point out their limitations, and the specific limitation in question is their willingness to encapsulate the full truth of what the museum depicts: their choice to depict a version of the past that tourists expect instead of “the” past. So I need to look for an answer choice which suggests that the author would agree with this new information.

This is the opposite of what I’m looking for, so I can eliminate it. I can also eliminate A because it distorts the passage. The author would not describe the museum representations as accurate, since the whole point of the passage is to point out that they don’t tell the full truth of the history of the blues.

This isn’t exactly what I was looking for, but it’s pretty close to it, since one way to say that a claim is in line with the passage is to say that it does not negate the passage arguments. I would choose B and move on, but double-checking C and D is understandable.

C is wrong because it implies that the author would disagree with the quote in the question stem. It’s also wrong because the author never argues that the past is “unidirectional,” which makes C go beyond the scope of the passage.

Again, I can eliminate D because I’m looking for a choice which claims that the passage agrees with the question stem, which the use of the word “undermine” suggests is not the case with D.

For a question like this, it helps to check my summary of paragraph 3, which is unfortunately not too helpful; the paragraph just argues that the museum displays instruments that match the “authentic” narrative of blues musicians that museums push. A quick scan of the paragraph shows that Robert Cray and B.B. King show up at the end of the paragraph: “While one cannot deny that many of these musicians were forced to survive in a world of poverty and grueling, labor-intensive employment, it is also true that some blues musicians, including B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, and others, amassed considerable personal fortunes.” Because I know that the main idea of the passage argues that this “authentic” depiction of the blues involved portraying blues musicians as poor, Cray and King are given here as examples of musicians who don’t fit that description. The right answer will say something similar.

This is the opposite of what I’m looking for. “Redundant” implies that Cray and King resemble the stereotype of blues musicians—since they would only be redundant if they were the same as other examples—when paragraph 3 implies the opposite. A has to be wrong.

Given that the author challenges the traditional image of blues musicians, Cray and King’s wealth is direct proof of the author’s critique, which in turn makes them very relevant, and B incorrect.

That is close to what I’m looking for, since “inconsistent” here means “different,” and since Cray and King had a different life from the traditional blues musician. I can choose C and move on.

This choice is way off the mark. The paragraph doesn’t obviously imply that Cray and King are somehow being untruthfully depicted, so I can safely eliminate D.

I know that paragraph 4 argues that blues tourists “seek out images of what they perceive as an authentic blues culture.” The paragraph then helpfully defines what “authentic” means at its end: “an authentic blues culture” is one “apparently untainted by the more commercial aspects of marketing and tourism.” So the right answer will have to bring up a more “real” encounter with the museum’s subject. But this question is elevated in difficulty because its stem ends with “most like,” signaling that this is an analogy question. The right answer will be the one that has a similar logic to what the passage argues, so one that describes people who think they’re getting an “authentic” experience, or one that is less commercialized.

A hints at how the wrong answers in this question will work. A play’s original language is one way to experience a more “authentic” version of the play, but this definition doesn’t fit with the definition given in paragraph 4, since it doesn’t say anything about the work’s “commercial aspects.” I can therefore eliminate A.

B is the opposite of what I’m looking for, since “popular” films are also, by definition, more commercially successful. If B were the other way around—if it described film-goers who wanted to see more obscure films before they watched popular ones—then B would have had a better chance to be correct. As it is written, though, I can safely eliminate this answer choice.

I don’t even know where to begin mapping C onto the passage argument, since there’s no clear echo of seeing something live versus watching it on television. I suppose the “live” sporting event might be more authentic than the televised experience, but there’s not enough there to suggest that somehow the live event is less commercial than the televised one. C has to be wrong.

This looks like the right answer. Not only are all the rest wrong, but an audience that wants to see drawings that were never for sale is also an audience that prefers to experience less commercialized aspects of an artist’s work: just like the blues tourists described in paragraph 4.

A largely fact-based history passage like this one tends to make finding the main idea difficult, so it’s not surprising that one of the first questions would help me orient to that main idea by first asking for the main topic. I know that the passage is about Americans who migrated to Canada in order to avoid the Vietnam draft, and I know that the passage argues that these Americans are largely not studied, so the right answer will have to involve those Americans.

I don’t get the sense that the passage defends the American war resisters; there’s nothing in the passage that argues, for example, that what they did was right or just. The passage tone is too neutral to be described as “justifying” anything, so A has to be incorrect.

B definitely sounds as neutral as the passage does, which makes it a good candidate for the right answer. I would choose B and move on.

C is a tempting answer choice because the passage does explain their reasons: they fled the war. But there are too many elements of the passage that don’t focus on arguing this, such as the paragraphs that just note about how many migrants there were, and what difficulties they faced. Since the passage argument goes beyond what C describes, C cannot be the main point of the passage, and so has to be incorrect.

D has to be incorrect because, like C, it is a localized argument—this time to paragraph 3–and not the main one. One way to define what makes a point the main concern of the passage is that it has to be the topic for multiple paragraphs in the passage.

I know that the passage as a whole is focused on describing American war resisters who fled the draft by moving to Canada. So I can safely assume that “the rest” refers to those who resisted the American government by moving to Canada.

A exactly matches my prediction, so it must be correct.

The passage doesn’t discuss Americans who wanted to return to America after the war was over, so B is out of the passage’s scope and is therefore incorrect.

C is not about Americans who migrated to Canada (since they chose to resist the U.S. while still in the U.S.), so C has to be incorrect.

D has a similar problem to C. The passage is not at all interested in immigrants to Canada who weren’t Americans fleeing the Vietnam War, so D has to be incorrect.

This question seems suspiciously simple: almost as if it doesn’t require the passage at all. If Toronto is closer to the center of Canada than Vancouver or Montreal, and if, as the question stem states, American resisters often went to Toronto, then it logically follows that the reason why American resisters went to Toronto is because they could more easily access the city. Questions like this are actually common in history passages, since the heavy use of facts tends to lead to simple passage arguments, and the test can’t really ask hard questions about simple passage arguments.

I can eliminate A because it doesn’t say anything about Toronto being centrally located in Canada.

B has a similar problem: nothing about Toronto being in Central Canada, or Vancouver not being in the middle of Canada.

C, though, fits my description. If the busiest border crossings were centrally located in Canada, that could help explain why Americans went to Toronto: because it is close to places where Americans were most likely to cross the border. C is therefore correct.

Again, there’s no mention of central Canada here, so D is incorrect.

Don’t let the dates scare you into checking the passage; there’s only one time period discussed in this passage, so the dates are irrelevant. The question has to be referring to American migration during the Vietnam War. I know that the “nature of the American migration to Canada” during this period was a political one: to avoid the draft. So the right answer would have to challenge this: perhaps by saying that most Americans didn’t migrate to Canada to avoid the draft.

A matches my prediction. It challenges the passage by suggesting that American immigrants to Canada didn’t move for political motivations like the draft, so it has to be correct.

Both numbers are given as the low and high end of the estimated number of American draft dodgers who immigrated to Canada. Since the passage mentions both, it’s not clear how B would weaken the passage argument. I can safely eliminate it.

C is too out of the scope of the passage to be correct. For a claim to weaken the passage argument, it has to be relevant to it. And whether or not American immigrants moved back to America after the war doesn’t suggest that the author is wrong about why Americans immigrated in the first place. One can actually argue that C strengthens the passage argument, since if Americans left during the war and returned to the U.S. after it, that raises the likelihood that the author is correct: that Americans left because of the war.

D is wrong for the exact same reasons C is. Both choices talk about what happened after the war, which makes both choices too outside of the passage scope to weaken the passage argument. D is also wrong because it would likely strengthen the passage argument, not weaken it. If fewer people moved to Canada after the war than during, that raises the likelihood that the war played some role in Americans’ decision to migrate during the war.

This is a tone question: one that asks me to assess the intended effects of a word or phrase. Luckily, this passage is very consistent with regards to its tone. At every point, it is neutral; there isn’t even a clear sense of condemnation for, say, a counter-perspective. So the right answer will likely mention something neutral, like a description, while the wrong answers will suggest a more active use for the word “resisters.”

“Nonjudgmental” is very much a synonym for neutral, so I can choose A and move on.

Opposition here is a less neutral term, so I can eliminate it. B is also incorrect because all the passage clearly argues is that the resisters opposed the war, and not necessarily authority figures.

“Unpatriotic” is definitely not a neutral term, so I can eliminate C.

D also articulates an effect that isn’t neutral—since it is arguing for something—so D is also incorrect.

This is unfortunately an answer choice that can’t be sped up; all I can do is check and see if an explanation is given, unless I noted those explanations when I first read the passage.

The first paragraph states this with no follow up or an example explaining this phenomenon, so I can safely eliminate A.

Again, there’s nothing in the passage which explains why the American government ignored some resisters, so I can eliminate B.

This is the most tempting answer choice so far, since one would imagine that, with the whole passage being about these migrants, that the consequences of their migration would be discussed. But this claim is brought up at the end of paragraph 3, and is not further elaborated on, since the next paragraph moves on to talk about where the migrants moved. That makes C incorrect.

Paragraph 4 goes on to give reasons why this happened, though D is tricky because those explanations are largely negative: “Vancouver’s labor force was tightly unionized, making jobs hard to find, and Montreal presented language problems. English-speaking and increasingly cosmopolitan Toronto became the place of settlement for the largest number of American resisters.” Those reasons for not choosing Vancouver and Montreal are also implicitly reasons why the resisters chose Toronto; that’s more than enough to make D correct.

It’s tempting to automatically presume that the heavy smoking raised in the question stem has to be an occupational stressor, since that’s all the passage discusses. But paragraph 5 goes into detail regarding kinds of actions that stressed-out people take. I know that smoking is a behavior, and paragraph 5 states that “behavioral strains consist of actions people take to cope with stressors and the associated emotions.” So the right answer will have to mention behavioral strains.

Unless smoking is part of their job, it’s not clear how heavy smoking could be a work-related source of stress for the smoker. That’s enough to make A incorrect.

I don’t really know what that means in the context of the passage, so B has to be out of scope and therefore incorrect.

That’s exactly what I’m looking for, so I can choose C and move on.

We now generally consider smoking bad, so it’s difficult to imagine how the passage would argue that heaving smoking is a constructive activity. I can therefore eliminate D.

Though this is phrased as a difficult “LEAST” question, it’s really just a main idea check since the main idea is concerned with the relationship between control and stress. As the last paragraph most clearly crystallizes, the more control you feel you have over your job, the less stressed out you’re going to be, so I need to find an answer choice which describes someone who has a lot of agency when they do their work.

Since the person described here has ceded significant control to their partner, that person would experience more stress, not less. That makes A incorrect.

Again, B describes someone with little control over their lives, so it has to be incorrect.

Since the patient doesn’t get to make decisions about their treatment, they are more likely to be stressed out: making C incorrect.

D is strangely worded, but it has to be correct because the athlete is part of a team in which teammates get to exert at least some control over how they do their jobs. And by emphasizing the control this athlete has, the choice signals that they are going to experience less stress.

Here’s another question that hews close to the main idea. I know the passage correlates control with stress, so if someone has a lot of control over their work environment, they’re not likely to feel stressed.

This sounds tempting because successfully dealing with stressors should result in less stress, but the passage doesn’t actually state that people who have control over their work environment manage their stress better. It actually states that those with control “will be less likely to interpret the environment as stressful,” which is a totally different situation. If you don’t think an environment is stressful, you don’t need to engage in constructive acts to manage stress that isn’t there. That’s enough to make A incorrect.

That last part of the answer choice might throw one off because it doesn’t directly mention stress, but most of the passage articulates how harmful stress can be to one’s well-being. So if someone feels less stress because they have a lot of control over their work, then they are less likely to see their job as harmful. That makes B correct.

C doesn’t say anything about lessening stress, so I can eliminate this one.

The opposite has to be true: that the higher you are in a corporate hierarchy, you have more control. Such is actually stated in paragraph 3, so D has to be incorrect.

The vagueness of the question stem’s topic tells me that this question is asking me to weaken the main idea. So the right answer will be one that challenges the author’s argument that feeling more control reduces the sense of one’s job as stressful.

This would go directly against what the author argues. Factory work is, by definition, low-control work—since factory workers work on assembly lines, their effectiveness is dependent on them fulfilling specific tasks in specific ways—while paragraph 3 defines high-level management as high control work since its “tasks can be done at any place, at any time, and in almost any manner employees see fit.” So if it were somehow the case that factory workers were less stressed out than their executives, that would suggest there is something wrong with the author’s correlation of control and stress. That’s a textbook definition of a weakener, which means A has to be correct.

B cannot weaken the passage argument because it’s almost just a restating of the passage’s first paragraph, which I know supports the author’s main idea.

C is incorrect because it is too far out of the scope of the passage to be correct. The passage argument doesn’t need there to be actual threats for workers to be stressed out about; the perception that there is something threatening is enough to make someone experience stress.

I’m immediately suspicious of D because it gets too into the weeds of the passage argument. Properly assessing D would take more time than is fair. D ends up having to be incorrect because nothing in the passage depends on what D would challenge: the idea that interpersonal relationships are more stressful than company organization.

There’s not much to be done here but to check and see which answer choice has a claim that the author explains or provides support for in the passage. Luckily, I can mostly localize my search to the first paragraph, which details the negative outcomes of occupational stress.

This is a tricky one, since the author does say what causes this loss—“absence, lost productivity, and health costs”—but that’s actually not evidence that U.S. businesses are losing so much money to stress each year. Evidence would have to involve something like specific cases in which more stress led to more absences, or made workers work less, or sent them to the hospital more. Since A is only further described and so not supported in the passage, that’s enough to make it incorrect.

This claim is supported by evidence, though not in the first paragraph: which mostly goes through a list of short term and long term symptoms of stress. Those long lists might be interpreted as evidence for the claim, but it resembles A too much to make me sure that B is correct. But paragraph 5 does argue the point more: “In the short term, such physiological changes can result in minor physical symptoms, such as headache or upset stomach. Chronic elevation of heart rate and blood pressure can contribute to more serious health conditions and ultimately heart disease in some individuals.” That’s more than enough elaboration to make B correct.

I should be suspicious of C because it refers to the exact same sentence as A, and so suffers from the exact same problems. C has to be incorrect.

D has a similar problem to C, by also referring to the exact same sentence as A, and so is similarly incorrect.

The direct quote doesn’t help me much; a threat to “psychological well-being” sounds a lot like stress, which is what the whole passage is about. So I need to be on the lookout for an answer choice which describes a cause of stress. I can further refine my prediction by noting that the right answer has to be psychological in nature.

A is mentioned in the passage, but not as a threat to the employee; it is instead a symptom of perceiving a threat. That makes A incorrect, and it tells me that this is how this question will work: by bringing up reactions to stress, and not causes of stress.

B describes a physical cause of stress and not a psychological one, so it has to be incorrect.

An argument sounds like a psychological threat—since the harm isn’t directly physical—which makes C correct.

D has to be incorrect because, like A, it is listed in the passage as a symptom of stress, and not as a cause of it.

This is a tough question because it seems to depend on my understanding what “a thematic mode of film criticism” is. If I didn’t know what that meant, then I’d have to look for an answer choice which most closely related to the main idea about auteurism and its emphasis on the director as author, and on the film as its own unique medium. However, I do know that “theme” is a term from literary studies, so I know the right answer will especially emphasize that film is film: that it is its own unique medium, and so proponents of auteur theory would view thematic analysis negatively.

Since the passage doesn’t clearly define what a thematic mode of film criticism is, I don’t have enough information to know if thematic analysis involves a political approach. I should therefore eliminate A.

I know that paragraph 4 suggests that those in favor of the auteur understanding of movies disliked the studio system, so it’s hard to see why proponents of auteur theory would be upset if the thematic mode of criticism didn’t treat the studio system as important. I can safely eliminate B.

I know that auteur theorists valued the visual dimension of film from the discussion of muse-en-scene in paragraph 3, so C is a great candidate for the right answer.

I can eliminate D because I don’t know if the thematic mode of criticism has anything to do with Hollywood. There’s just not enough information in the passage to suggest this.

This is a perspective heavy passage, which means that I probably should have kept track of who said what when I first read the passage. Sarris comes up in paragraph 4 as someone who believes an auteur is still possible in Hollywood. He also comes up with a scheme for evaluating films on the basis of “technical competence, the presence of a distinct visual style, and the emergence of ‘interior meaning,’ which, Sarris maintained, arose from the tension between the director and the conditions of production within which the director worked.” Buscombe comes up in the next paragraph with another list of factors for evaluating film: “the effects of cinema on society; the effects of society (including ideology, economics, and technology) on cinema; and the effects of films on other films.” The question asks me to identify how they interact with each other, and the only point that I can easily correlate is Sarris’s emphasis on “interior meaning” and Buscombe’s listing of the effects of society on cinema, since both involve the economic dimension of the film. The right answer should say something to this effect.

Sarris doesn’t say anything about how a film affects society, which is Buscombe’s first recommendation, so I can eliminate A.

B resembles my prediction, so I can choose it and move on.

Sarris argues that foreign films and documentaries aren’t superior to studio or popular films. I can’t see how that conflicts with Buscombe’s third recommendation, since it doesn’t directly say anything about how films affect other films. That’s enough to make C incorrect.

This is actually another point on which Sarris and Buscombe differ, not agree. In paragraph 4, Sarris is described as favoring the auteur model for cinema: “Is it possible for the auteur to be identified in the great factory-produced art of America? As far as American film critic Andrew Sarris was concerned, the answer was definitively yes.” In the last paragraph, Buscombe is trying to “create alternatives to the auteur approach.” Since they are working towards different ends, it’s not clear how Sarris would support Buscombe, broadly speaking, so D has to be incorrect.

To answer this question, I have to first confirm what paragraph 3 argues. Paragraph 3 is a continuation of the argument from paragraph 2 in favor of the auteur approach to cinema. Caughie in particular is listed there as someone who advocates for emphasizing the mise-en-scene: the visual elements of a film. This is described in paragraph 3 as “probably the most important contribution of [auteur theory] to the development of a precise and detailed film criticism,” so the right answer should say something about how Caughie provides an example of what auteur film theory involves.

Nothing about Caughie seems to claim this, and A lacks anything about the visual element in film or auteur theory, so I can safely eliminate it.

No directors are listed by Caughie, and Caughie is not described as a director, so I can eliminate B.

This is tempting because Caughie does refer to “liberal commitments,” but I don’t have enough information to know what an “intellectual basis” means in the passage. That’s enough for me to eliminate C.

That matches my prediction nicely, and is almost an exact paraphrase of the Caughie quote from paragraph 3, so I can choose D and move on.

I know that “popular genres” are only mentioned in a small part of the passage: specifically, paragraphs 4 and 5, where Sarris is described as trying to stand up for popular genres against the perspective that experimental or foreign films are superior to Hollywood’s profit-driven films. But I should also pay attention to who is disparaging popular genres in the question stem: “literary critics.” So the right answer should say something about how these literary critics would disagree with Sarris.

Astruc is brought up in the second paragraph as someone who suggests that film should stop depending on literature. He doesn’t have anything to say about popular genres though, so I can eliminate A.

This is tempting because it mentions Sarris, but Sarris’s evaluative criteria do not directly refer to popular genres enough to suggest that those critics could affect that criteria, so I can eliminate B as well.

While stated in an oblique way, C is a great candidate for the right answer because it matches my prediction by implying that those literary critics (and not just film critics) would disagree with Sarris.

This answer is tempting if I overemphasize the question stem’s reference to literary critics. Given that auteur theory is originally rooted in the desire to make film differ from literature, D seems to imply that auteur theory shouldn’t look so badly at literature if literary critics would agree with auteur theorists on the poor quality of popular genres. But D is incorrect because the passage barely even mentions literary critics; the only time it does is in paragraph 3, when Caughie is brought up to explain how an emphasis on the visual allowed for films to move past “literary models” of criticism. Since that reference has nothing to do with popular genres, I can eliminate D.

Here’s another time-waster, since I need to find the only answer choice that is not explained with supplementary information or argumentation. That means checking each answer choice to see whether what surrounds it in the passage helps explain or support it. The right answer will be the only one that isn’t supported or elaborated on.

The next sentence supports this claim; to say that “Astruc was convinced that cinema would replace the novel, but believed that cinema must first become more like the novel” is to elaborate on how Astruc “challenged cinema’s reliance on literature as its primary source of storytelling.” That makes A incorrect.

The second sentence of paragraph 3 elaborates on how Astruc impacted Truffaut: “Truffaut’s 1953 manifesto for a new French cinema reiterated Astruc’s stylistic emphasis.” That’s enough to make B incorrect.

This is a great prospect for the correct answer because it doesn’t involve a person’s perspective, nor does it refer to the main topic of auteurism. Checking paragraph 3, this point is just stated; the next sentence goes back to discussing Truffaut, and makes no reference to liberalism or thematic analysis again. C thus has to be the correct answer.

I know that basically the entirety of paragraph 5 is dedicated to arguing this point, so D has to be incorrect.

Renaissance altarpieces are mentioned almost in passing in the passage, which makes this question a bit of a time-waster: especially because, unlike most instances in which such a reference is given, it doesn’t come with a paragraph citation. This signals that this passage’s questions will be easier, since harder questions wouldn’t need to resort to such tricks. Renaissance altarpieces are mentioned in paragraph 1, when the author brings up that Monet hoped that his works would be kept together as a group, but that they were instead “sold to collectors all over the world, a dispersion that evokes the breaking up and scattering of the panels of so many Renaissance altarpieces.” That implies that the author brings up Renaissance altarpieces because they, like Monet’s work, were supposed to stay together as a group, but were instead broken up and owned by individuals. That’s enough for me to find a right answer.

That perfectly matches my prediction, so I should choose A.

I might be able to guess that altarpieces probably depicted something religious, but the passage doesn’t tell me whether Monet’s works were seen as religious or anti-religious, so I can eliminate B.

This is actually quite tempting, because the reference to Renaissance alterpieces does involve art collectors. But the larger art world is not the focus of this reference, and isn’t really discussed in the passage; the passage focus is more on Monet’s art, and how it is meant to be depicted. Since C goes beyond the scope of the passage, it has to be incorrect.

D is quite similar to B insofar as it invokes Monet’s subject matter. But since his depictions of nature aren’t explicitly described as religious, I can safely eliminate D.

The discussion of Monet’s reproductions occurs in paragraph 3, which begins with the author stating that Monet’s work isn’t well-captured in reproductions. Since I’m looking for an answer choice that challenges this, the right answer will probably say something good about reproductions.

A is close to the right answer because it seems to be saying something positive about reproductions: that they are as good as Monet’s original art. But A brings up a term that the passage doesn’t: “casual viewer.” Since the passage doesn’t make strong claims about casual viewers, A is too far out of the passage scope to weaken it.

The passage doesn’t discuss photographic reproductions, so like A, B is too far out of the scope of the passage to challenge it.

C matches my prediction because it says something good about reproductions. I also know C is correct because the author says of Monet’s originals that “It is because this work lives in such details that the paintings’ deepest beauty does not survive in reproductions,” so any claim that details are actually more, not less visible in reproductions would definitely challenge the author.

Prices aren’t discussed in relation to reproductions, and it’s not clear what prices have to do with the level of detail reproductions can capture, so D is again too far out of the passage scope to cannot challenge the author’s claims and must therefore be incorrect.

This refers to the same paragraph as the previous question: yet another indication that this is an easier passage. I know that this paragraph is meant to emphasize what’s so good about Monet’s work, so the right answer is likely going to say something to that effect. If I wanted to be doubly sure, though, I could check the paragraph, which tells me that the author brings up seeing work slowly because “Viewed this way, the surface of each painting suggests a wealth of inner movement, as the eye progresses from one tiny colored splotch or line to the next, as if viewing some mysterious microscopic living world.” That just confirms my prediction: that the author emphasizes this approach to point out how to properly engage with Monet’s richness.

A doesn’t match my prediction because it doesn’t say anything about what can be seen in Monet’s work by viewing it slowly and thoroughly, so I can safely eliminate it. A is also wrong because the discussion of why Monet’s works are not often displayed in series is mentioned in paragraph 1, while the question is about paragraph 3: far enough in the passage that it’s more than likely that the passage argument has moved on from that initial point.

I don’t even remember the word “imperfections” coming up in the passage, which makes B suspicious. Furthermore, I know that the quote from paragraph 3 is meant to highlight what makes Monet’s work so good—indeed, there isn’t a bad word about Monet in the whole passage—so B has to be wrong because it suggests that there’s something wrong with Monet’s work.

This is tempting because the quote above does eventually lead into a discussion of the paradoxes in Monet’s work, but those paradoxes are related to aspects of the work themselves, and not how those works should be viewed. There is just too much rhetorical distance—too many intermediary points—between the quote in the question stem and C for C to be correct.

This matches my prediction perfectly, so I can choose it and move on.

This question’s reference to nature tells me that I need to focus on the main idea as given in the last few paragraphs: that what makes Monet’s art beautiful is that it is presented as immediate and natural, on the one hand, but also as artificial and manicured on the other.

A matches my prediction. Paragraph 4 states that Monet’s works are all “carefully arranged, composed, and synthetically created as the gardens Monet cultivated at his home in Giverny. The overall compositions are often very simple, yet they seem carefully selected and perfectly balanced—too perfect to be an accident of nature.” To say that Monet’s works are “too perfect to be an accident of nature” because they are “carefully selected and perfectly balanced” is to say that something natural cannot be arranged, which is what A says.

The passage actually often says the opposite: that nature is quite pleasing as a subject. So I can eliminate B.

The last paragraph argues the opposite: that nature is quite complex, and that Monet is such a good painter because he is able to capture some of that complexity. C has to be wrong.

This is also argued in the last paragraph—the word “mutable” is even used—so D has to be wrong.

This will come off as a difficult question because it’s talking about paradoxes, which are inherently difficult to discuss. Luckily, the main idea of the passage is itself a paradox: that Monet’s work is somehow both able to feel like it faithfully depicts the natural world, and yet is too cultivated to be an accurate depiction. But since the passage mentions paradoxes, I should be on the lookout for others. The only other one mentioned is in paragraph 4: “A related paradox can also be found not only in Monet’s work, but in the work of a number of his contemporaries.” That paradox refers to how these artists “apply paint in varying degrees of thickness” which gives their work a “slight three-dimensionality,” thus making the works feel more physical. At the same time, though, all that paint suggests that one is looking at something that isn’t physical: that is just a painting, a visual representation. Since the quote in the question stem doesn’t have anything to say about paint thickness, I should be on the lookout for an answer that claims the comment is an example of the first paradox, but not the second.

I can’t see how this could be correct. First of all, nothing in the passage challenges any of its paradoxes; and since the quote is from the passage, any answer choice which claims the quote challenges the passage cannot be correct. Furthermore, I predicted that the quote supports the first paradox because it’s an example of how Monet’s paintings somehow feel both natural and artificial. So I can eliminate A.

B has a similar problem to A: that there’s nothing in the passage which challenges either of the paradoxes, so B has to be wrong as well.

This matches my prediction, so I can choose C and move on.

D, however, directly contradicts my prediction, since there’s nothing in the quote about paint thickness, so D has to be incorrect.

This is a reference to paragraph 2, which argues that novels engaged with the complex societal changes that were happening at the time. So I should look for an answer choice which states something to this effect.

This has to be incorrect because this fits the description of the romantic poets, who the author argues went in a different direction than the novelists.

B also describes the poets and not the novelists, so it too is incorrect.

The author does argue that novels engaged with the changes happening at the time, and some of them were scientific. However, the author does not claim that novels simply advocated for those changes; paragraph 3 only goes so far as to say that they tried to “comprehend and interpret” those changes. Comprehending and interpreting can involve a critical dimension that simple espousing cannot. That’s enough to make C incorrect.

D matches my prediction. The novels of the time were trying to grapple with the changes occurring during that century, which is exactly what D says.

The first part of the question stem that draws my attention is its quoting of a poet, so I know I’m engaging with the main idea: that the poets of the time moved away from their contemporary world, and towards either their inner selves or very different times and places. Since the question is asking how the new information would affect the passage, I can note that Coleridge thinking about ancient China would be in line with the passage, since it is him not thinking about England. So the right answer will say that this new information supports the author’s point about the romantic poets.

A matches my prediction, so I can choose it and move on.

There’s nothing in the question stem which suggests Coleridge was antisocial, so I can safely eliminate B.

C distorts the passage; while the author does note that the romantic poets favored the natural landscape, that is largely mentioned to contrast them with the novelists, who were thinking about the urbanization England was going through. In other words, the passage just says that the romantic poets focused on natural landscapes more generally. There’s not enough in the passage to suggest that they focused on English landscapes in particular, which makes C wrong.

D also distorts the passage, which argues the exact opposite. The novelists focused on the revolutionary issues of the time, while the poets did not. D is therefore also wrong.

This question once again brings me to paragraph 2, where the author argues that novels engaged with the changes happening during their time. So the right answer will say something about this engagement.

The passage argument actually says the opposite: that poetry differed greatly from the novel. So A has to be incorrect.

B also contradicts the passage, which states that novel authors engaged with the real world.

This is tempting to dismiss, since it doesn’t seem to have much to do with the passage ideas. But since it references the nineteenth century, there’s enough here to give me pause. I can either check to see if I can eliminate D (which is what I would recommend), or double-check the passage now. Paragraph 2 states that the novel “during the nineteenth century assumed major importance as a literary form.” If the novel only gains importance in the nineteenth century, I can safely assume that it didn’t have that importance prior to the nineteenth century. That’s enough to make C correct.

I don’t really know enough about how much novels earned from the passage for D to be correct.

Here’s another question about novels, so another reference to the part of the main idea about them: that they engaged with the changes happening at the time. The only challenging part of this question is that the answer choices will be examples, so I need to choose the one that best fits the logic of engaging with contemporary topics.

“Inner life” sounds a lot more like the poets of the passage, who are depicted as not sharing concerns with the novelists. So A has to be incorrect.

B sounds like a contemporary social issue—since it is from a “system during this time”—so B has to be correct.

“Medieval” is definitely a reference to a much earlier time than the romantic period, so I can safely eliminate C for not engaging with the issues contemporary to that period’s novels.

There’s nothing here that refers to the time of the novel, so D goes beyond the scope of the passage enough to be incorrect.

The question stem helpfully situates the reference to Darwin’s theories in the first paragraph, which I know describes the changes happening during the romantic era. So the author must have mentioned Darwin in order to give an example of some of the drastic changes happening at the time. That’s a good prediction for the right answer.

A sounds like a great right answer. It matches my prediction, and it further references novelists who would have engaged with drastic changes like the effects of Darwin’s theories on English culture.

Nothing in the passage suggests that the novelists disagreed with Darwin’s conclusions, so I can safely eliminate B.

C actually has a similar problem to B, insofar as it is attributing a perspective to novelists that the passage doesn’t support. Nothing in the passage has people judging novelists as being animalistic, so I can eliminate C.

D has to be wrong because the passage only discusses the popularity of poets (or rather, the lack thereof). There’s also definitely nothing in the passage to suggest that novelists were more or less popular on the basis of Darwinian selection.