I noticed these observers in my initial read of the passage because they are a perspective: one that cautions that one way to account for the increases in “The death rates for chronic heart disease” is in “diagnostic advances, which had improved doctors’ ability to detect heart ailments.” To say that the ability to better detect heart problems might explain rises in death rates is to suggest that there might not actually be more incidences of heart disease: that we are perhaps just getting better at tracking how many actual people suffer from heart disease. That’s enough for an answer.
A is what I’m looking for, and is perfect for the right answer. It captures how these “observers” are meant to contrast with those who think that heart disease rates were “soaring” after World War II.
The observers actually seem to be implying the opposite: that the techniques are accurately capturing how many incidents of heart disease there are, more so than past techniques were. B has to be wrong.
This sounds right, until I realize that C is way broader than paragraph 1 is. I don’t actually know that there was a general increase in death rates after World War II, because the observers are only reacting to an increase in death rates to heart disease. C distorts passage information, and so has to be wrong.
D has to be wrong because, again, the observers do not think there is an increase in heart disease. There actually isn’t much of a relationship between the decline in communicable disease and those who think there was an increase in heart disease after World War II; it is just that the former allowed people to pay attention to the latter.
This is a flaw question, which is difficult for two reasons. The first is that it requires me to figure out a flaw in an argument, or: in this case, an argument that the author critiques. This can be hard to do because good arguers don’t make mistakes that are easy to spot. The second reason why this question type is so difficult is because the answer choices tend to use abstract wording, so even if I can figure out how an argument is flawed, I need to take an extra step and figure out which answer choice describes my prediction. The argument where the author attacks the belief that diet is responsible for heart disease happens in paragraph 2. Since I’m looking for a flaw that the author mentions, I need to look for a contrast keyword, which happens in the middle of the paragraph: “But isolating the true causes of coronary disease proved elusive. In addition to diet, multiple factors were potential contributors, including genetics and personal habits such as smoking.” So the right answer likely has something to do with there being many other issues to consider besides diet.
This cannot be correct, though this is a common answer choice for this kind of question. The original argument is something like “bad diet causes heart disease.” For A to be correct, the author would have to argue that “heart disease causes people to have a bad diet,” which the author definitely does not say.
B is another common answer choice for this kind of question, but it is also wrong in this case. Mistaking correlation for causation means that one presumes there is a causal relationship between two events—that A causes B—when there is only evidence for a coincidence: A and B happening in sequence, but independently of each other. The author does not attack claims that diet causes heart disease by saying that it is just a coincidence that people who eat cholesterol might have higher rates of heart disease, so I can safely eliminate B.
C is yet another common answer choice for a flaw question, but it too is wrong. This kind of flaw depends on an argument of causality—A causes B—that also fails to recognize that A and B might both be the result of a common cause: that C causes A and C causes B. For C to be right, the author would have to argue that there is something else that encourages people to eat cholesterol and have heart disease, but the author never says such a thing. Instead, the author seems to implicitly agree that diet could play some part in causing heart disease, but that many other parallel factors need to be considered. C therefore cannot be right.
D is all that’s left, and it fits what I’m looking for, since those other causes could include “genetics and personal habits such as smoking” (paragraph 2).
Ahrens’ criticism is raised in paragraph 4, where he argues that “population-wide dietary recommendations” are bad because they are “simplistic and a promoter of false hopes” which treat people like “a homogenous group of [laboratory] rats while ignoring the wide variation” in individual health profiles.I. I fits, since Ahrens is saying that people are more complex, and so need advice that is not “simplistic.”
II. I can’t see anything about flexibility in that quote, however; there is no amount of flexibility that will fix government guidelines, since Ahrens wants guidelines that are
III. not flexible. So II is out.
diversity. III, though, works, since that resonates with his concern over the “wide variation” in people’s bodies.
I works, but III does too, so that makes A wrong.
II is wrong, so that’s out.
Same for C.
D, though, contains both options I’m looking for, so it’s safe to pick and move on.
The start of paragraph 5 has an “has actually” in it, which suggests that it is continuing an argument made in the previous paragraph. Paragraph 4 contains Ahrens’ argument that guidelines could be bad. Looking at what Ahrens is arguing against, what catches my eye is another mention of carbohydrates in paragraph 3: “The committee also advised raising carbohydrate intake.” If the 1977 guidelines suggested that we should raise our carbohydrate intake, but paragraph 5 states that the latest science suggests that carbohydrates “make it difficult to burn fat and also increase inflammations that can cause heart attacks,” that suggests that the 1977 guidelines may have been dangerous. It also suggests that we should perhaps not trust guidelines at all, since the settled science can change so drastically over time.
A fits my first deduction so well that I would choose it and move on.
This sounds like an implication of the argument, but it is not clearly why the author mentions the carbohydrates in paragraph 5. As the start of that passage suggests, the author is by this point really focusing heavily on the problems with guidelines, which makes A more attractive than B.
C is easy to eliminate because the passage is talking about heart disease, not the obesity epidemic.
This is also incorrect because there is no dominant diet mentioned in the passage.
The right answer will strengthen the author’s recommendation to the government. It’s always worth noting when an author recommends something in an initial reading of a passage, since recommendations are arguments, and the test loves to ask about them. This recommendation comes in the last paragraph: “The best thing that the U.S. government can do to promote health is to encourage people to develop their own individually-tailored diet and exercise programs, in consultation with health-care professionals.” So I just need to find an answer which seems to support this.
It’s hard to determine whether A would strengthen or weaken the author’s argument. Having nutritional information on food packaging might make it easier for individuals to develop diets that fit their individual needs, but it might also be in service to the broad government dietary recommendations that the author dislikes. Since it is difficult to either clearly eliminate or choose A, I’ll keep it around until I find a better answer choice.
Though the passage does not discuss obesity, that is not necessarily a problem in a strengthener question; the right answers to these are, by design, meant to come from outside the passage, and so can contain information that the passage does not. If people were less obese—and therefore healthier—when parents controlled diets, then that speaks to the effectiveness of individually-tailored dietary plans. And if they can work with obesity, they may be able to work with heart disease. It is worth noting that though the majority of the passage is about heart disease, the last paragraph shifts to the more general topic of promoting health, which also helps make B a good answer choice: good enough to eliminate A and move on.
C goes against the author, since it describes people being for government intervention, while the author is for less government intervention in nutrition policy.
D is wrong for the same reasons C is wrong: because it supports more government control over dietary recommendations, while the author is arguing for greater individual control over diet.
The question stem suggests that C is an analogy question: that I have to apply the logic of the passage argument to space shuttle flights. Those dissenters are mentioned in paragraph 6 as dissenting “because they find the government’s evidence inadequate and its recommendations potentially harmful.” So I need to find an answer choice which refers to either problem: having not enough evidence to suggest a course of action is a good one, or that the course of action could be harmful.
The dissenters don’t mention anything about laws being broken, so A is out.
B is more tempting than A because paragraph 6 begins by mentioning politics, but the dissenters are described as explicitly unconcerned about “government paternalism,” which is the primary subject of the political discussions over dietary recommendations. B therefore has to be wrong.
C is perfect, since such design flaws fit my second prediction: that the flight could be “potentially harmful.” I can choose C confidently and move on.
D is also wrong because the dissenters do not mention money in their concerns.
Based off of the main idea of the passage, I know the author would be against anything which increased government control over diet, or furthered the work of government dietary recommendations. That should be more than enough to find an answer for this question.
This is a pretty good candidate. This legislation resembles the dietary recommendations, since both come from the government, and both seek to limit some behavior. It’s also easy to see how the author might object to A on the same grounds that the author objects to dietary recommendations: because they will not “encourage people to develop their own individually-tailored” approaches to work (last paragraph). However, there is a little bit of risk in choosing A, since it is talking about actually prohibiting how many hours one can work, while the passage limits itself to dietary recommendations, so I would tentatively pick A but double check the other answer choices just to be sure.
The author is not clearly opposed to government funding in general, so I can safely eliminate B.
Though lobbyists are mentioned in paragraph 6, there is no clear indication that the author thinks that there should be more or less regulation for lobbyists. The author is primarily concerned with what the lobbyists are talking about: the terms of the debate, so C is too out of the scope of the passage to be right.
This is clearly meant to be a provocative answer choice, since it uses language from the passage, and because it is tempting me to assume that the “oversight” exercised by government is likely going to center on nutrition. But D has to be wrong because the author would likely support D.
Though this question stem says “strong evidence,” what it’s really saying is “any evidence.” Only one answer choice will have evidence to back it up; the others will be stated without obvious support (or won’t be stated in the passage at all).
I’m immediately suspicious of A because it’s so extreme; how likely is it that “all” Surrealist were like Dali? A gets clearly challenged in the last paragraph, which talks about how Dali’s behavior “overstepped the mark and even invited the public to make fun of the movement’s convictions,” which led to the Surrealists rejecting Dali. Since it is unlikely that they would have rejected him for being like them, A has to be incorrect.
The author clearly advocates for Dali, but this claim in the last paragraph is just stated; there is no evidence to back it up. B would be correct if, for example, the author provided some painting of Dali’s that was appreciated long after he died, but since there is no direct proof of B, it has to be wrong.
This one is tricky. C is explained in paragraph 2: “There was even fairly convincing proof that this frivolous and exuberant impresario was capable of the strictest asceticism while he was painting a picture.” But that’s where the paragraph ends: without actually giving that convincing proof. Since the claim is given without proof in the passage, it has to be wrong.
This is the only answer left, and so it has to be correct. The author gives evidence for this claim in paragraph 3: “His provocative attitudes were not adopted for publicity purposes only, but satisfied a need to keep his mind in a state of excitement that would be congenial to his artistic activity. They were useful, too, in winning immediate acceptance for his most fantastic works, because their extravagances appeared to illustrate an intellectual drama.” Since the passage gives some of the rational causes that D alludes to—that his behavior helped him paint, and helped him sell his works—D qualifies as being supported by evidence. That’s more than enough to make D correct.
To answer this question, I need to make sure I know how the passage defines a Surrealist, and then look for the choice that best fits that definition. That seems to come most clearly in paragraph 4: “Dali seized on the guiding principles of Surrealism and gave them their most extreme interpretation; he transformed its interest in the revelations of the unconscious and psychopathological states into a way of thinking and living.” This suggests that the paintings were weird and were a glimpse into the unconscious, or subconscious mind. That should be enough to find an answer.
Symmetry and its calming effects are not weird, and there is nothing here to suggest how the artist thinks or lives. This answer choice incorrectly focuses on the effect the art can have. Together, these make A wrong.
Answer choice B seems to have what I’m looking for: the painting of unrelated objects would be weird, and the representation of anxiety gives me insight into the artist’s subconscious mind.
This answer choice is describing a skill, not a weird pairing. It also lacks a clear relationship to the artist’s unconscious or subconscious mind.
This answer choice is tempting because Dali was described as “eccentric” in the passage. However, this answer choice does not indicate that the photograph itself was weird, or that the photograph represented the artist’s unconscious mind. B is the best answer.
Though this is phrased as an author’s attitude question—in which case I should normally try to determine the tone of the author when talking about Dali—the answer choices suggest that this is a much simpler question: one that just asks me to know what the author thought of Dali. The work I did to answer Q8 comes in handy here, as does my grasp of the main idea: the author thinks that Dali had good reasons to act as he did.
Paragraph 4 directly contradicts this, since Dali claims he was not mad. The author also does not clearly state that Dali was mad.
This is incorrect because, again, my work from Q8 helped me remember that Dali’s behavior went beyond what many Surrealists did.
C is closest to the right answer I came across for Q8, and that the author argues in paragraph 3. I can choose it and move on.
The author would never agree with this, since the author really likes Dali and his work.
I don’t need to know anything about Hitchcock to answer this question; I just need to ask myself what would make someone choose Dali for a movie project. The question stem gives me a hint by mentioning that the movie is a “psychological thriller.” That brings paragraph 4 to mind, which describes how Dali “transformed its [Surrealism’s] interest in the revelations of the unconscious and psychopathological states into a way of living and thinking.” In other words, Dali used psychology in his painting, so why not use him in a psychological thriller?
A is wrong. Maybe A explains why someone would notice Dali, but it does not explain why he would have been chosen to help with a psychological thriller.
B is kind of the same answer as A, since both involve Dali’s public recognition. That means B also has to be wrong.
C has a similar problem to A. Maybe C makes Dali generally attractive, but why would being a dedicated artist make him a good fit for a psychological thriller?
D, however, works well as the right answer. It essentially echoes the argument from paragraph 4.
This question once again refers to paragraph 4, and the discussion of how Surrealism draws on the unconscious and other psychological phenomena. That should be enough to find an answer.
A is pretty good because of how closely it echoes the description of the guiding principles of Surrealism. Dali is still being described as a Surrealist when paragraph 4 states he cultivated “his hallucinations” and tried to paint from the perspective of a madman. That’s more than enough for me to choose A.
B has to be wrong because the Surrealists disagreed with Dali’s behavior, as stated in the last paragraph.
C makes no sense at all, given the description of Surrealist art in paragraph 4.
D also makes no sense, since this somewhat commonplace explanation for why people make art isn’t mentioned in the passage. D has to be wrong.
his is a kind way to start the passage, since it refers to the last bit of the passage I read. The last paragraph mentions that “Digging and collecting at the San Luis site have proceeded with some urgency, since wind erosion is exposing and damaging many artifacts,” so the right answer must echo this quote.
That’s not mentioned in the last paragraph.
But B is. That’s enough to choose B and move on.
C sounds like A, and has a similar problem, so it’s incorrect.
D isn’t mentioned in the last paragraph, so it’s easy to eliminate.
I’m aided here by the main idea: the unifying argument in the passage. I know that the passage focuses on the tools used and made by the Folsom Indians. Paragraph 3, which I paid attention to while reading because the author mentions how “important” it is, mentions that “each small population of hunters made tools out of material that they gathered themselves.” Hopefully that’s enough to find an answer.
The passage mainly mentions hunting and not agriculture, so A is wrong.
The passage actually doesn’t say enough for me to pick B. I know the different groups ate bison and other wild game, but that’s not enough information for me to judge that they ate a “wild variety” of game.
Paragraph 3 suggests the opposite: that “There was apparently little trading and no long-distance movement between the geographically separated bands of Paleoindians.” C is therefore wrong.
D is left, and it is exactly what I predicted, so I can choose it confidently.
This is another passage check. This time, I just have to remember that something similar to the question stem is mentioned in paragraph 5: “Often, there are clusters of tools and bones, indicating the remains of a hearth around which domestic activities took place.” So the passage is stating that these remains suggest that domestic activities were happening here.
A has nothing to do with domestic activities, and it’s hard to know how the presence of remains would even suggest A, so I can eliminate A.
B, though, sounds right, since communal here is synonymous with domestic: activities that took place around the hearth. I like B enough to pick it and move on.
The passage actually says the opposite: that the site described in paragraph 5 suffered a lot of erosion. That makes C wrong.
I also eliminated D in the last question because it contradicted the passage, which states that the bands of Paleoindians did not interact with each other, so D has to be wrong still.
Maybe it’s just because the passage keeps mentioning the same points, but my first thought upon reading the question stem is that the answer probably has something to do with how those Folsom hunters would not have interacted with the other bands, and perhaps something about how their tools would have been manufactured locally. Still, my best strategy here is to go with what I can identify: the wrong answer choices, since I know they will be options mentioned in the passage as common to all Folsom hunter sites.
A is incorrect because the presence of both bones and tools are used as proof that these were even Folsom hunter sites. So if there is a new site in northern Texas, it also probably has those clusters.
Paragraph 2 mentions that skeletons of hunters were found at Folsom sites, and the rest of the paragraph suggests that this was common, so there is no reason to choose B.
Hearths are also implied to be a common feature in Folsom hunter sites, so I can eliminate C.
D has to be the answer, though it is a tricky one, since Colorado flint is mentioned in the passage. However, Colorado is not Texas, and if there were Colorado flint tools in a northern Texas site, that would violate the passage argument in paragraph 3: that the different groups made tools locally, and did not meet other groups enough to trade tools from different regions.
This once again refers to paragraph 3: “each small population of hunters made tools out of material that they gathered themselves […] The San Luis site has projectiles made from high-quality flint, petrified wood, and quartzite, which are plentiful in the central and northern Rockies. Some of the rock sources for the tools appear to be at a distance of fifty miles or so north of the valley, indicating that the hunters moved into the valley, perhaps following the herds of bison in the fall.” So the main evidence is that the tools were made from material that was readily available near where the hunters lived.
A fits the bill, since it mentions the tools being constructed out of local resources. I can choose it and move on.
Tool materials were unique, but I don’t know anything about how tool shapes were different between bands, so B has to be incorrect.
I also don’t know that C is correct. The passage does mention bison an awful lot, so the passage probably contradicts C.
I don’t see anything about customs or languages in paragraph 3, where this argument is made, so I can feel safe eliminating D.
Given that the entire passage is about hunting groups, if deer bones were found at these sites, then they were probably a food source?
This seems comically wrong. There’s definitely no information in the passage that supports A.
B is a bit more tempting, since I know that Bison showed up at the San Luis Valley site, but the passage does not talk about competition over food. It’s possible that the two animals had entirely different food sources. At the very least, the passage only talks about the presence of animal bones as evidence for how the hunters lived; since B is focused on something else, I can safely eliminate it.
There’s not a lot about animals migrating from different regions, and the passage doesn’t say that the presence of bones at some place would obviously imply C, so I can eliminate it.
D is right: the bones probably mean that the hunters hunted deer and at them at their hunting sites.
There are way too many ways to strengthen this claim, so I should just prepare myself to find an answer choice which makes it more likely that the bison were killed by the Folsom hunters.
A is a pretty great answer choice, since it at the very least suggests that the bison were hunted by the Folsom hunters. The tools were also used extensively as proof of the presence of Folsom hunters, so A definitely helps make it more likely that the hunters had something to do with the deaths of bison. I would choose A and move on.
The passage made clear that there have been dangers of losing material that could tell us about the Folsom hunters, and the passage is talking about evidence that is ancient, so it is entirely possible that even if there is no evidence of an alternative animal food source, that some food source may have existed. Finally, B has to be wrong because it doesn’t speak directly enough to the bison.
This is a pretty tempting answer choice, but all it tells me, on its own, is that Bison ended up at Folsom sites. Without more information, C leaves open the possibility that the hunters just used the remains of Bison they found out in the wild for something else.
D has a similar problem to C; both only suggest that bison and the Folsom hunters were related, but do not clarify that relation enough to make D correct. Without a clearer sense of the violence done to the bison, D cannot be right.
This kind of question is usually identifiable by its answer choices, which list levels of support or opposition for a claim. On my first reading, I noticed that the author began by making a statement about biologists in general: “It stands to the everlasting credit of the International Fraternity of Biologists that biologists, with rare exceptions, never pushed the development of biological weapons” (paragraph 1). That mention of “rare exceptions” suggests that biologists were mostly against developing those weapons.
A is the opposite of what I’m looking for.
But B is what I’m looking for.
There is nothing to suggest C; the author is pretty clear that biologists were not equally divided in their opinions on biological weapons.
D is the only really tempting answer choice here, because the author clearly celebrates how much opposition there was to developing biological weapons. However, the reference to the International Fraternity of Biologists and that strong language is meant to trick the careless reader, who might miss that comment about there being “rare exceptions” to the rule that biologists opposed the development of biological weapons. Since at least a few are implied to have supported such development, D cannot be right.
This is another attitude question that actually just ends up being a passage check. Field Manual 3-10 is mentioned in paragraph 3 and 4, but it is only elaborated on in paragraph 3: “It said that the United States was equipped and prepared for biological warfare, that this was the way a modern army should be trained, that every country that wanted to keep up with the Joneses must have its own biological agents and bomblets too.” By saying that “this was the way a modern army should be trained,” that implies that the United States military seems to be in support of biological weapons, and that the military believed they had good reason for that support.
A is the opposite of what I’m looking for, so I can eliminate it.
The first half of B is attractive, but the second half doesn’t quite feel right. There is no such reservation either in paragraph 3 or 4, and the way that the manual is described in paragraph 3 seems to suggest that there was logic to using biological weapons: “this was the way a modern army should be trained, that every country that wanted to keep up with the Joneses must have its own biological agents and bomblets too.” That’s enough for me to think that B has to be wrong.
C, though, is perfect, since it fits the quoted parts of paragraph 3 well. I can choose it and move on.
D is very similar in effect to A, since both are against biological weapon development, while the manual is for that development and usage. Since A is wrong, and since A and D cannot both be right, D has to be wrong.
The long anecdote involving Meselson and the generals takes up the 5th and 6th paragraph, but the specific reference is to the discussion in paragraph 6. Meselson there is clearly determined to try and get the military to stop developing biological weapons, and faces the most opposition to his third point: “biological weapons are uniquely unreliable and therefore inappropriate to any rational military mission for which the United States might intend to use them” (paragraph 5). I know from reading the passage that Meselson asked the generals about how they would use it in order to argue for the idea that biological weapons were not rational, which should be what the right answer says.
Meselson does not say that biological weapons would do little damage. If anything, Meselson implies the opposite: that these weapons would do a lot of damage, but it would be damage that we might not be able to control.
This is a great candidate for the answer because it speaks to Meselson’s overall goal of explaining why biological weapons are unreasonable, and could not be used for a “rational military mission” (paragraph 5). I would choose B and move on.
Meselson is described early on in the passage as someone who is responsible for ridding “the world of biological weapons” (paragraph 2), and he is only depicted as arguing against the development of biological weapons. Since Meselson is not depicted as having any reservations about biological weapons, C cannot be right.
D is wrong for a similar reason to C: it implies that Meselson budged at all on his opposition to biological weapons, which he definitely did not.
This is a pretty easy passage check question.I. destroy stockpiles of biological weapons. I is confirmed in the last paragraph, and in paragraph 2; the last paragraph describes President Nixon announcing the “abandonment of all development of biological weapons” and “the destruction of our weapon stockpiles,” while paragraph 2 states that Meselson successfully “rid the world of biological weapons.”
II. abandon programs of biological weapons development. II is also suggested by the quote from the last paragraph about Nixon.
III. better utilize existing biological weapons rather than rely on new ones. III has to be wrong because, as I saw in Q22, the biologists depicted show almost uniform opposition to biological weapons, and so would not support using any of them: old or new.
I is correct, but so is II.
B contains both correct options, so it is the right answer.
III is wrong, so C is wrong.
D has the same problem.
This is another passage check question. This one asks me for information from paragraph 5, where Meselson’s three objections to biological weapons are mentioned: 1) “biological weapons are uniquely dangerous in providing opportunities for a small and poor country, or even for a group of terrorists, to do grave and widespread damage to a large country such as the United States,” 2) “the chief factors increasing the risk that other countries might acquire and use biological weapons are our own development of agents and our own propaganda,” and 3) biological weapons are uniquely unreliable and therefore inappropriate to any rational military mission.” One of those has to pop up as the right answer.
This is a tempting answer choice: one that tempts me because it sort of resembles the broad gist of the three points. However, it only works if I let myself be convinced to distort the passage information. Meselson never quite argues that biological weapons do not work; he instead suggests that using them would be a bad idea, which is not quite the same thing. Given these issues, and the general vagueness that A presents, I would eliminate it and look for a better answer choice.
Meselson does not list how much it costs to research biological weapons, so B has to be wrong. The first reason Meselson gives, though, could be construed as implying that even poor countries could get their hands on these weapons or develop them themselves, in which case B is wrong because it contradicts the passage argument.
Meselson never talks about having more medical research laboratories, and C doesn’t say anything about biological weapons development, so it has to be wrong.
D is left and it is almost a word-for-word re-description of Meselson’s first point, so it has to be correct.
This is the main idea, so I can easily predict the answer: Meselson convinced the government to abandon biological weapons because he convinced them that there was no rational military use case for them.
The last question also brought up the problem of cost, which the passage does not talk about, so A is wrong.
Though this may be a result of Meselson’s second point—that “the chief factors increasing the risk that other countries might acquire and use biological weapons are our own development of agents and our own propaganda” (paragraph 5)—the author never raises the possibility that stopping the production of biological weapons would encourage other countries to abandon their own production. More importantly, though, paragraph 6 implies that even if the generals could be convinced of B and Meselson’s first point, the decision to stop producing biological weapons would depend on their being convinced of Meselson’s third point: that is, about whether or not there were rational reasons to use biological weapons in a military action. B therefore has to be wrong.
C is wrong because it is not among the reasons Meselson mentions, and Meselson is described in the passage as instrumental in convincing the government to abandon development of biological weapons.
That leaves D, which is synonymous with what I predicted: that there is no reasonable justification for using and producing biological weapons. D is therefore correct.
This question asks about a part of the argument that critiques Callas, so I know to look in paragraphs 2 and 3. In both paragraphs, the author uniformly complains about how the revived operas were changed: “most editions made for Callas were eviscerated, rearranged, and even recomposed to a point that the hand of the composer was sometimes scarcely perceptible” (paragraph 2). This implies that the author would have liked it if the revived ballet was not changed from its original form.
A is incorrect because the author actually seems to like complex music: music that is harder to perform. This is clear in the last paragraph, which mentions how the author likes Callas’ “musical complexity.”
B sounds great: a revival that retains its original style is likely to be missing the changes that the author objects to. However, this being the first question, I would feel better if I eliminated the other answer choices as well.
The author would clearly be against C, since the author seems to hate the changes made to Callas’ revivals.
This is something Callas is quoted as saying in a part of the passage where the author is clearly unhappy with Callas, so D cannot be right.
This question still keeps me in paragraph 2, since that is where the unedited sections of music are mentioned: “long and dreary sections of music were retained in Callas performances largely untouched.” So the author seems to think that these unedited sections made for bad music.
A is precisely contrary to what the author implies about the unedited sections of music. If listeners thought they were beautiful, the author’s description would appear less accurate.
B is wrong because Callas’s voice isn’t mentioned at all in relation to the unedited sections in Callas performances.
C goes against the passage, since these sections were left unedited and “untouched” (paragraph 2).
D is probably the easiest to eliminate because it would reinforce how the author describes the dislike of the unedited sections.
In this LEAST question, the right answer will contain an assertion that is given without evidence or an example: that is just stated without support. That means that the wrong answer choices will be supported. There is no efficient way to predict what the right answer will look like beyond this—it would be a waste of time to scan the passage looking for unsupported claims, because there are likely many—so my best strategy is just to go into the answer choices and check to see if the passage offers support for each one.
This is the central claim of the last paragraph, which is long enough for me to suspect that there is some evidence in there. A quick scan of the paragraph goes on to support this claim with a lengthy explanation of what “authenticity” typically means in music, and then why this is a strength for Callas: “There is no ‘acting’ in Callas’s work at its best. Whatever she sang feels inevitable even when the listener is fully aware of problems with performance practice and editorial mishandling. Callas’s musical insights are authentic in the most profound sense, her art a transcendent probing of the music and an evocation of its inherent humanity.” That’s more than enough support to make A incorrect.
This is the main claim in paragraph 2: another lengthy paragraph, and so likely one that offers some support for B. That support is actually fairly extensive, in all the concerns that the author states in that paragraph over Callas’s editions: the problems with the edits, and what was not edited. That’s enough to make B wrong.
This claim is given in paragraph 3, with the example of Callas’s leaving out cadential trills that were in the original music: “One could have expected Callas, as the putative champion of dormant traditions, to inform herself better about relevant performance practice issues.” That example makes C incorrect.
D is a great candidate for the right answer because it is stated at the very end of paragraph 3: giving the author no room to support the claim unless the next paragraph starts with that support. And since the next paragraph switches topics, D is stated without evidence, which makes it the right answer.
The third paragraph involves the author’s attack on “Callas’s understanding of performance practice,” and a quick scan of the answer choices suggests that the right answer will have something to do with “cadential trills.” In paragraph 3, the author uses the absence of those trills in Callas’s performance as evidence that she is “unstudied,” so she must think of those trills as somehow necessary for this music to work.
The author makes no distinction between obvious and subtle trills; the author’s problem is with the absence of trills that are supposed to be there, obvious or not, so A has to be wrong.
B is wrong for the same reason: whether or not the trills were in expected or unexpected places, the point is that Callas’s leaving them out suggests that Callas lacks some understanding of performance practice.
C would actually make sense as a defense of Callas. Since the author is attacking Callas in this paragraph, C has to be wrong.
That leaves D, which works because it suggests that Callas should not have omitted those trills. I can choose D with confidence.
Authenticity is described in the last paragraph, where I get two definitions. The one that comes from historical performance circles states that “the word has a bad reputation, often describing performances with correct external and musicological trappings that lack musical or artistic vitality and have a sense of the academy or the museum, rather than the stage.” To say that this music is better fit for the “museum” than the “stage” is to suggest that authenticity means something that is historically correct, but lacks the liveliness of a performance for people today: like music done by the numbers. I just need to look for an answer choice that describes a film that functions in the same way.
The discussion of authenticity happens after the author’s remarks about editing revived works, so A cannot be correct.
The last paragraph suggests that “authentic” music lacks emotion, so a film that reproduces emotions would not fit the passage description of authentic.
C, however, is a good fit, since it mentions that the adaptation lacks emotion: is lacking “musical or artistic vitality.” I would choose C and move on.
This is the other definition of authenticity in the last paragraph, but it is one that the author assigns to Callas. Since it is not the definition given by those in historical performance circles, D has to be wrong.
This is a bit of a challenging question to start with, because the author lists many things that the British did wrong. Addressing any one of them could have altered the outcome of the Revolutionary War. So to answer this question, I need to be on the lookout for an answer that addresses one of those problems.
A is listed as the “accepted view” of why the British lost in paragraph 2, but since the rest of the paragraph goes on to list many other reasons why the British lost, the implication in using the word “accepted” here is that the author believes that it is not an actual reason why the British lost. One can read the latter half of the passage as suggesting that the British use of force is actually one of the problems that the author raises with the British approach to the war: that “the British assumed that no plan was needed to suppress a rebellion—only hard blows” (paragraph 6). That’s enough for me to eliminate A.
B simply isn’t mentioned in the passage; the closest the passage gets is that the British believed in their superiority, but at no point does the passage suggest that they were only ready for a short war.
This, though, is a good candidate for the right answer, since the lack of a comprehensive plan aligns with what is discussed in paragraphs 2—where the author mentions the lack of a “coherent strategy”—3—where the author complains about the “Failure to focus available resources on a single objective and give that objective absolute priority”—and 4: where the author blames the British for “having no clear plan of strategy.” Some comprehensiveness in their planning could have addressed these problems. I would choose C and move on.
Paragraph 4 suggests that D would have been a bad idea: “While George III had no trouble making up his mind, it contained only one idea—to conquer, but not how.” Britain needed a leader that could come up with a comprehensive plan and execute it; the king seems to have only contributed to the British problems.
My work on the last question helps me with this one. Paragraph 6 states that “Carelessness followed from the assumption that the superiority of British force was so great that it made taking pains in performance unnecessary.” In other words, the right answer should mention something about how powerful the British military was relative to that of the revolutionaries.
That doesn’t say anything about how strong the British forces were.
6, which states that the British were so powerful that they thought investing in strategy was unnecessary.
C is wrong because it does not focus on the British.
D, though, is correct, because it fits the argument made in paragraph 6.
King George III is mentioned in paragraph 4.I. had trouble making up his mind. Scanning that passage, I can confirm that I is wrong because paragraph 4 explicitly states that “George III had no trouble making up his mind.”
II. wanted conquest but had no plan. II, though, has to be true because it is just a restatement of what follows that quote: “his mind, it contained only one idea—to conquer, but not how.”
III. had a detailed plan of how to win the war. Taking both of those phrases together disproves III, since they suggest that he had no plan more detailed than wanting to win.
I has to be wrong.
This is correct, because II is the only correct option.
That eliminates III as well.
And D is wrong because I is wrong.
There is no really good way to predict the right answer to a question that is as broadly phrased as this one is. Since it’s asking me about “a theme of the passage” as opposed to THE theme, I can’t even necessarily be sure that the right answer will involve the main idea. So my best bet is to trust in my reading of the passage and scan the choices, looking for the one that corresponds to a point made in the passage, while eliminating those that don’t.
A works, because politics is the last thing that the passage author refers to as a reason for why the British lost the war in the last paragraph: “Politics as much as anything defeated the British in the American war.” That’s enough of a resonance with the passage to make A correct.
B has to be wrong because it’s not an option discussed in the passage. The passage is about how the British lost, and actually implies that the British could have ended up with a more advantageous outcome if they had acted differently.
I don’t remember much about whether or not the war was justified in the passage, so that’s enough for me to eliminate C.
There is no talk of compromise with the Americans in the passage, so D is wrong.
Complacency is specifically mentioned in paragraph 5, so it makes sense to double check it: “The danger in complacency is that it causes the possessor to ignore as unimportant the local factors and conditions that govern other people with whom it deals.” So the right answer has to mention something about the British being out of touch with how people lived in the colonies.
A fits, so I can choose it and move on.
While the ignorance that complacency breeds may include the British failing to notice the buildup of American forces, B is wrong because it’s too limited as an answer choice. It lacks any mention of the conditions of colonial life that get mentioned in paragraph 5.
This rivalry is mentioned in the last paragraph, and so has nothing to do with the discussion of complacency. That makes C wrong.
D describes an advantage for the British, when the author is very clear that complacency hurt the British, so D cannot be right.
Since the passage is full of factors that affected Britain’s war effort, there are too many correct responses to make predicting what the right answer will look like worth it. It’s best to just go into the choices and be ready for just one of the choices to be mentioned in the passage as hurting the British, since the passage is entirely about how the British war effort was negatively affected.
I don’t really recall a mention of technology, so I can eliminate A.
Leaders are definitely talked about in the passage; paragraph 3 and 4 specifically complain about the negative effects of how leaders saw the war and the Colonials. B works well enough as an answer that I would choose it and move on.
Logistics aren’t mentioned in the passage. The British clearly had a great deal of logistical ability, but lacked the will and foresight to use it properly.
The passage does not discuss morality at all, so D can be eliminated.
This is a pretty difficult passage, so it’s actually sort of kind of the test-makers to give me a straight main idea question as the first question. The passage begins by arguing that “Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature” (paragraph 1), but that gets further clarified in paragraph 2: “If we are right in suggesting that our conceptual system is largely metaphorical, then the way we think, what we experience, and what we do every day is very much a matter of metaphor.” The rest of the passage helps explain this by establishing that we do think in metaphor, and how those metaphors can condition our behavior. Since everything rhetorically leads back to that claim from paragraph 2, I’m looking for an answer choice which talks about how metaphor affects how we think, act, and experience.
This claim is mentioned in paragraph 3, but it is used to suggest that we are therefore unaware of how much our conceptual system relies on metaphor. A is therefore incorrect because a claim that is used in service of another claim cannot be the central thesis of the passage: cannot be what the passage is focused on arguing.
Though this claim occurs after the main idea, B is incorrect because it is only illustrating the main idea: is serving as evidence for the claim that metaphor affects so much of our lives. Since B supports another claim, it cannot be the main idea.
C matches my prediction, and so I can choose it and move on.
D is a claim made in the first paragraph, as part of the author’s explanation of how people typically think of metaphor. Since the author goes on to suggest that metaphor does more than just those two functions, D cannot be the main idea. The central thesis has to be where an argument ends, not where it begins.
This question is asking me to apply the passage logic to a new situation. Given the passage arguments, I know that the quotes in the question stem have to be thought of as metaphors. Luckily, the author gives me a fairly extended example of a metaphor in the second half of the passage; the quotes in the question stem resemble the heavy use of the war metaphor in argumentation. There are even 4 quotes in the passage, and 4 quotes in the question stem, to reinforce that I should probably look to that part of the passage. The author explains the effect of seeing argument as warfare in paragraph 6: “We can actually win or lose arguments. We see the person we are arguing with as an opponent. We attack his positions and defend our own. We gain and lose ground. We plan and use strategies. Many of the things we do in arguing are partially structured by the concept of war.” If that is the case, then I am looking for an answer choice which suggests that there is something about how we think of vitality that is structured by the metaphors we use: that resembles the logic of the random phrases above. Looking at that logic, it’s interesting that energy seems to be equated with volume, like a substance; water brims, or overflows, for example. Maybe that will be enough to help find an answer.
That’s clearly implied by the phrases above, but none of them seem to touch on the metaphor of energy. There are many ways to say that one has more or less of something, so why use a metaphor like “brimming” and “overflowing”? A has to be wrong because, by itself, it does not speak to that specific aspect of the quotes.
B has the same problem. While B may be implied by the quotes, it does not say anything about the metaphor. The right answer has to do something like what the author does with war and argument.
This is better. Vitality as a substance is a metaphor: saying one thing in terms of another. And looking at the question stem, substances (like water) can brim, overflow, or be lost. I like C, but since this is such a hard question, I’ll double check D as well.
D has the same problem as A and B: it does not refer to the metaphor at all, so it must be wrong. C is correct.
This is another direct reference to paragraphs 5 and 6: specifically paragraph 6, where the point about our reigning metaphor about argument as war is made. Following the same logic, the speaker seems to think that an argument is like a contest: something someone can win or lose.
A is wrong because winning doesn’t necessarily imply violence. A would be right if the speaker had said something like, “He maims me every time we argue,” but since a different metaphor is used, A has to be incorrect.
B fits my prediction, and so makes sense as the right answer.
This is meant to trick me because it is the author’s argument, but the author actually claims in paragraph 2 that C is something that most people do not recognize. Moreover, C has to be wrong because there’s just nothing in the quote in the question stem about conceptual systems.
D is incorrect because, looking at the quote as strictly as possible, there is no talk of unpleasantness. I may think that it is unpleasant to never win an argument with someone, but that is just me projecting my personal biases onto the question. Since the quote in the question stem has nothing to do with D, D is wrong.
This is a tough question, in part because the question type is asking me to understand the passage argument well enough to know how it functions, and how it could be useful, but also because the passage talks about how metaphors and conceptual systems affect all that we do. However, the last paragraph helps speak to how the passage argument might be useful to someone who is encountering a different culture. Knowing that people may think and act differently simply because they use different metaphors could help that person figure out how to acclimate themselves to that new culture: by learning these metaphors, and understanding how they would affect the way a person behaves.
A fits my prediction. To use the argument’s terms in the last paragraph, an ambassador from a culture where argument is thought of in terms of war would benefit from learning to pay attention to the metaphors in a country where argument is thought of as a dance. That would help the ambassador learn about the culture, and how to behave and work with it. I like A enough that I would choose it and move on.
Since the passage argument is that metaphor can affect so much of what we do, I can’t decide what a wrong answer looks like on the basis of that specific definition of the main idea. If I did, then every answer choice would be right. So I am better of narrowing my definition of the passage argument to talking about the relationship between metaphor and thought. It takes me a lot more effort to justify how a senator engaged in a debate would benefit from the passage argument than it does to justify A. Maybe deciphering the metaphors that the opponent uses might help the senator to outmaneuver or convince the other debater, but since I have to add extra justification to make this choice attractive, I should eliminate it.
I also can’t easily see how C fits. Again, I can force it if I try—maybe the analyst could be aware of the metaphors people use when they talk about money to make market decisions or provide good market explanations—but, like B, that requires adding a chain of conditions that I didn’t need to add to A in order to make the choice justifiable. That makes C wrong.
I can eliminate D on the basis of it being designed as a choice that’s meant to trick me. The general preparing for battle resembles the latter claims about arguments as war, which is supposed to make D attractive enough for me to avoid scrutinizing it. But D has the same problems as B and C: it takes a few steps to make D have anything to do with metaphor and thought. And the more I have to work to make an answer look right, the less likely that is the right answer. D is wrong, and A is correct.
Here’s another question that’s confirming that I understand the passage logic: specifically, that I understand what a metaphor is. If I am trying to say that I am going crazy by using the expression, then craziness is a destination: someplace around the bend.
A fits my description, but this is a challenging question, so I would feel better about choosing A by eliminating the other answer choices.
This is probably the most attractive answer choice besides A; after all, the quote in the question stem mentions driving. But if madness was the car, then I wouldn’t need the “around the bend” part of the phrase to suggest that I was going crazy; I could just talk about driving. Since that part is integral to the metaphor, B has to be wrong because it is not comprehensive enough.
C runs into the same problem as B, insofar as it does not really account for the “around the bend” part of the metaphor. If madness was just a road, why not make it straight? Or an overpass? Or why even have a car?
D is meant to be attractive to people who get frustrated by this question, and so decide to go with the gist of the phrase. Clearly some force is moving me around the bend if I use the expression above. But force is too abstract to account for the imagery that makes up the metaphor; it has nothing to do with driving, or being around the bend. Since D is even more distant to the metaphor than B and C are, it has to be wrong.
This is a direct reference to the last paragraph. I might not remember exactly what the dance metaphor implies, so a quick check of that paragraph would help: “Imagine a culture where an argument is viewed as a dance, the participants are seen as performers, and the goal is to perform in a balanced and aesthetically pleasing way. In such a culture, people would view arguments differently, experience them differently, carry them out differently, and talk about them differently. But we would probably not view them as arguing at all: they would simply be doing something different.” Since the argument-as-dance people are portrayed as fundamentally different from the argument-as-war people, and since the argument-as-dance people seek to “perform in a balanced and aesthetically pleasing way,” I can at least presume that they will not look to destroy or conquer their opponent in an argument. A dance is more coordinated and collaborative than war is, and, one can assume, more peaceful. Hopefully that is enough to find an answer.
This doesn’t make sense. The use of the word “attack” suggests that A is a way of thinking about arguments that would be held by argument-as-war people. People don’t usually attack others while dancing.
This doesn’t have a lot to do with dancing either, but it does suggest a contrast with the argument-as-war people, which is the ultimate reason why the author raises argument-as-dance. B also seems in line with arguers performing “in a balanced and aesthetically pleasing way,” since a peaceful response is likely more aesthetically pleasing than trying to beat an opponent. I’m not 100% sure about B, but I like it, so I’ll keep it for now and see if I can eliminate the other two choices.
The whole point of the last paragraph is to accept that people may think about things differently, so I can’t see a good reason for the author to advocate trying to convince other people to think in a different way: to change the metaphors they use. Since the author does not seem to suggest that there is a problem with thinking of arguments like dances, C has to be wrong.
D is wrong for the same reason A is: because someone who thinks of arguments in terms of warfare would “defend” their position. There is no sense of defense in most forms of dance, so it would not make sense, according to the passage argument, to draw on a different and incompatible metaphor for argumentation when arguing with the person mentioned in the question stem. That’s a recipe for misunderstandings, when the author is implicitly trying to encourage greater understanding.
This question is meant to confirm that I have a strong grasp of the passage’s main idea. The major turn in the passage comes in paragraph 4, where the author notes that “new arrivals are often downwardly mobile in their occupation, sometimes undertaking employment that differs qualitatively from the work for which they were educated.” But rather than suggest that this is a straightforwardly bad thing—as the social stress studies the author cites would suggest—the author ends up suggesting the opposite in paragraph 5: “In fact, many of the reluctant entrepreneurs in Australia subsequently came to enjoy the freedom and independence of being their own bosses” even when they were selling newspapers instead of working as doctors. That suggests that the author would tell this new citizen—and therefore an immigrant—that they should look for a new job: one that might not be exactly what they did before, but that still might make them happy.
A fits what I’m looking for, so I’m inclined to choose it, but since this is the first question, it makes sense to take the time to eliminate the other answer choices and build my confidence in my knowledge of the passage.
The author’s argument seems to veer away from looking for work that resembles the job that one cannot find work in. Since the passage seems to emphasize “flexible responses” to a problem like the one in the question stem (paragraph 5), and B isn’t all that flexible, I can eliminate B.
C is similar to B, insofar as it describes an inflexible response: that is, does not suggest that the immigrant might find happiness by undergoing a more drastic career change. That makes C incorrect.
D is a provocative twist in the logic of the passage, since it implies that it is a good thing for the immigrant in question to get an entry-level job. However, nothing in the passage suggests that the immigrant should hide their qualifications, so that’s enough to make D incorrect.
This is a passage check question. I know that the poorest immigrants are discussed in paragraph 2: where the author mentions that “At the bottom of the stratification heap, any source of stress tends to be pervasively disruptive in its effects.” For stress to be “pervasively disruptive” means that the stress causes many negative effects for these immigrants, though the passage is not very specific with regards to these effects. That should hopefully be enough for an answer.
That’s not mentioned in paragraph 2, so I can eliminate it.
Neither is B.
C is also not mentioned with that quote.
But D is. “particular problems” like stress, according to paragraph 2, affect “many aspects of their lives,” which sounds like how “pervasively disruptive” stress can be. I would choose D and move on.
This is a straightforward weakener, so I just need to look for an answer choice which would make the passage argument less convincing. That requires me to keep the argument about adaption difficulties among immigrants in mind, which is mentioned in paragraph 1 and 2: that there is “an inverse relationship between socioeconomic status and psychological problems.” In other words, the lower the socioeconomic status of these immigrants, the more challenging they find adapting to their new country.
A would be in line with the passage argument, since it is not unreasonable to believe that immigrants with a high socioeconomic status would feel less stress, or perhaps even no stress, than those with a low socioeconomic status. At the very least, A does not negatively affect the passage argument, because that argument doesn’t depend on all immigrants experiencing some increase in their level of stress. That means A has to be wrong.
B, however, would definitely complicate things. If B is true, then it’s hard to believe that the lower your socioeconomic status is, the harder it is to adapt to a new country. That’s a fairly direct contradiction, so I can confidently choose B and move on.
The passage does suggest that social stress models are insufficient, but that’s actually in line with suggesting that immigrants may face a wider range of challenges than those studies suggest. I’m not really sure how C affects the passage argument, which makes C a bad answer choice. If C is true, there isn’t enough in the passage to suggest that the passage arguments about socioeconomic status would be challenged; after all, perhaps the poorer one is, the more stressful social encounters are. Given this issue, I would eliminate C.
D doesn’t even talk about immigrants, so it is too distant from the passage’s arguments to possibly weaken them.
The loss of socioeconomic status is discussed in paragraphs 3-5. Paragraph 3 notes that the ability of families to sustain their socioeconomic status depends on more than their status back in their home countries; it also depends “on the economic climate of the host society.” Paragraph 4 elaborates on this, by stating that “new arrivals are often downwardly mobile in their occupation, sometimes undertaking employment that differs qualitatively from the work for which they were educated.” The specific example given in paragraph 4 is of Australia, which mentions that persistent “institutional barriers, epitomized by a bureaucratic apparatus for the official recognition of professional qualifications, kept immigrants from exercising their skills.” That should be enough to find an answer.
Since paragraph 4 uses the example of a bad qualification policy causing immigrants to take on jobs that are of lesser socioeconomic status than their chosen professions, that must be at least one way that recent immigrants may experience a loss of socioeconomic status. A makes sense, and so I would choose it and move on.
The discussion in paragraph 4 actually implies that immigrants who lose socioeconomic status are likely to have extensive education, since they have to find work that does not take advantage of that education. That’s enough to make B wrong.
Demoralization isn’t mentioned in paragraph 4, so that’s enough to eliminate this choice.
D has the same problem. Even though this might seem intuitively true, it is not stated in the passage in relation to losses of socioeconomic status, so D is also wrong.
I don’t see what the new situation mentioned in the question stem has to do with stress, but I also know that the author’s greater argument is that “social-stress models of adjustment are not adequate to account for” the complex issues that accompany immigration (last paragraph). So the author could point to the finding in the question stem as proof of this: that we need to consider other models for immigrant success than the social-stress model.
A is exactly what I was looking for, and is also essentially the main idea, so I can pick it confidently and move on.
I don’t remember anything about labor unions in the passage, so I’m fine with eliminating B.
The question stem only says that the immigrants were assertive, but that does not necessarily mean that the immigrants were effective communicators. It is possible to be assertive and misunderstood. Since C is talking about something that the question stem is not, I can eliminate it.
This is the most attractive answer choice besides A, because “high in status” aligns with the finding in the question stem. But I don’t remember anything about how employers see immigrants as affecting their status, so I should eliminate D.
This is an initially difficult question to answer, since the whole passage is about images (and the imagination). And since my initial reading is so focused on the main idea, which is about how imagination makes us human, I might have missed a definition of the image somewhere in the passage. So a quick scan brings paragraph 3 to mind: “I am using the word image in a wide meaning, which does not restrict it to the mind’s eye as a visual organ. An image in my usage is what Charles Pierce called a sign, without regard for its sensory quality.” So an image can be something sensed, or visual, but it doesn’t have to be. That gets reinforced in the next paragraph: “Indeed the most important images for human beings are simply words, which are abstract symbols.” So one possibility is that an image is either something we sense, or something abstract.
A contradicts paragraph 3, which states that an image can be abstract, so A is wrong.
B, though, fits my prediction well. An image can either be something we sense with our eyes, or else it can be abstract like a word. That fits well enough that I feel good about choosing B, but maybe I missed another reference to what an image is in the passage; just in case, I would eliminate the other answer choices as well.
C is also wrong because the passage admits that an image can be sensed; to say the image is not restricted “to the mind’s eye as a visual organ” is to say that images can be visual.
And D is just wrong because an image can be both. Looking back at the answer choices, the reason they resemble each other so closely is to make this question more difficult, and to test whether or not I am really reading both the passage and these choices.
To answer this question, I need to consider what piece of the passage this new information relates to. Animals are talked about in paragraphs 3 and 4. Both, interestingly enough, mention time: how the larger frontal lobes in humans “govern the sense of the past and the future,” which implies that animals are likely to have a less well-developed ability to sustain thoughts over time than humans are. Paragraph 4 clarifies this a bit more: “the lack of symbolic ideas, or their rudimentary poverty, cuts off an animal from the past and the future alike, and imprisons him in the present.” The dog sounds like an animal with “rudimentary” symbolic ideas, so I can see how the experiment in the question stem relates to this argument about symbolic ideas. That should be enough to find an answer.
This is a great candidate for the right answer, because it basically restates that quote form paragraph 4. It’s such a close correlation that I would choose it and move on.
The passage talks about evolution and the brain, but it never says that human brains evolved more quickly than dog brains did. B has to be wrong.
Age isn’t mentioned in either paragraph 3 or 4, so I can safely eliminate C.
And nothing in the passage says that seeing in color helps you to remember things for longer, so D has to be wrong.
This is just a straightforward weakener about a major claim in the passage. However, the specific claim is one that I can predict a right answer for. If I’m supposed to find an answer that weakens the idea that “symbolic imagery is unique to humans,” then I need to find an answer which suggests that animals, too, use symbolic imagery.
This is a great answer choice. Paragraph 4 mentions that words qualify as symbols, so if chimpanzees can communicate in a language, they must be using words, and therefore symbolic imagery. That’s a strong enough weakener that it actually attacks even the evidence the author gives for this claim: that “there is no specific center for language in the brain of any animal.” That’s more than enough to make A correct.
Nothing here clearly involves symbolic imagery; one can imagine that instinct might be something of the opposite of using symbolic imagery, as the author describes it.
This is a stronger version of a claim made in paragraph 4 as part of the argument that symbolic imagery is unique to humans—that humans have large frontal lobes, which is where symbolic imagery is processed—so there is no way that C could weaken that argument.
This is meant to be tempting because it sounds like it is the opposite of C, but it clearly isn’t. The passage does not claim that humans have bigger brains than all animals—one can imagine that the brain of giant animals, like whales, are probably larger than humans—but rather that humans have large frontal lobes. D therefore doesn’t really have anything to do with the arguments about symbolic imagery, and so can be safely eliminated.
Though the wording on this question is a little abstract, it’s actually talking about time: about how language does not just affect the present, but also the future. Since language is a form of image, the part of the passage that comes to mind is paragraph 5: “The images play out for us events which are not present to our senses, and thereby guard the past and create the future—a future that does not yet exist.” That should be enough to find a right answer. Even without that prediction, the saying in the question stem is so unique that I should have no trouble eliminating the answer choices that do not resemble it.
This has to be incorrect. The saying in the question stem is about creating something, and doing more than description. It doesn’t say anything about moving images around. A has to be wrong.
B also doesn’t fit, since the saying in the question stem doesn’t compare animals to humans, or suggest that the ability to bring reality into existence is an advantage or disadvantage. Since B is more pointed than the quote in the question stem, it has to be incorrect.
C and B both talk about animals, and so both are wrong for the same reason: that the question stem talks about language, and not about animals or their relationship to humans.
D is the last answer choice, and so I would have chosen it on that basis, but D also fits my prediction.
This is just a reading comprehension question: asking if I understand what Sidney is saying. Since Sidney is part of a paragraph that is full of quotes without any sort of contrast words between them, I can safely assume that all the quotes are arguing the same thing. So even if I don’t understand Sidney, the quote from Blake in paragraph 6 is much clearer: “What is now proved was once only imagined.” Sidney seems like he is saying something similar: that to make something, one has to imagine it and then create it.
Sidney is talking about poets, but the author is not quoting him to make a point about poets, so A doesn’t make sense.
B fits my prediction, and so I would take it and move on.
C has a similar problem to A: it shifts the focus away from the imagination, which is what the author is actually interested in.
D is a bit better, but it is still too restrictive—talking about creative people instead of all people—and it doesn’t say anything about making: about how the imagination is an integral part of the process of creation. Since D is missing that key bit of information, it has to be wrong.
Given the passage topic, I know the quote from paragraph 7 has something to do with living. When trying to understand a difficult quote, it is a good idea to read it in context: to also study the sentences before and after it. The author writes, “Almost everything that we do that is worth doing is done in the first place in the mind’s eye. The richness of human life is that we have many lives; we live the events that do not happen (and some that cannot) as vividly as those that do; and if thereby we die a thousand deaths, that is the price we pay for living a thousand lives.” This quote is making a point about cost-benefit analysis: that we pay a price—dying a thousand deaths—because we get something out of it: living a thousand lives. Since the author is clearly in favor of this—such that the author calls this an aspect of “The richness of human life”—the author must be saying here that there are downsides to using the imagination, but those are worth the upsides.
There’s nothing in the quote about the evil that we can do. Yes, the imagination can lead to suffering, but it does not clearly lead to destruction. I can therefore eliminate A.
B fits my description, and so I would choose it and move on.
The author actually seems to suggest the opposite of C: that there can be downsides to using the imagination, but it is always good to do so, and so cannot be done to excess.
D is an answer that is meant to trick me because the quote from the passage mentions death, but it’s pretty clear that the passage is talking about death in a metaphorical or emotive sense, and not in terms of actual death. D therefore has to be wrong because it twists the logic of the passage.