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June 2007, Passage 1, Question 7

Transcript

Question 7. So when a question asks you what can be inferred that's an inference question no big surprise there. On an inference question, we have to find information in the passage that proves an answer choice. The answer won't be said directly but it'll be provable from things that were said directly.

Now, this question stem doesnt give us much to work with it just says what would the author believe. The author might believe a lot of things so were just gonna have to go answer choice by answer choice and do a process of elimination. So (A) Each of Doves works can be classified as either primarily poetry or primarily fiction, even though it may contain elements of both.

Now, this is something the author believes. If you looked at the discussion of Dove's work in the last paragraph it says her poetry offers examples of these things in these poems, so her poems are poems. And it says similarly, many passages in her fiction though undeniable prose, so they are definitely fiction they're not poetry. So, it may contain elements of both but each of them still remains the thing that it is, a poem is a poem fiction is fiction.

Answer choice (A) is something the author believes and we can prove it with stuff that the author directly said. So we should pick that and move on but just to say why the other answers are wrong. Answer choice (B) says, The aesthetic value of lyric narrative resides in its representation of sequence of event rather than its ability to evoke inner states.

Well, the author actually said that the opposite of that. That the aesthetic value came from its ability to evoke inner states not the representation of a sequence of events which the lyric narrative doesn't need, so (B)'s not our answer. (C) says, The way Dove blends genres is without precedent. Well, this answer choice is with a person who forgot that Dove is just an example of what's going on.

She's not the unique person doing it, it's just writers like her are doing it. Answer choice (D), Narrative that uses lyrical language is generally aesthetically superior to pure lyric poetry. Now the author does like the lyrical language in Dove, but they don't say that this is generally superior to doing it the other way it's just it's good that people are doing it.

So answer choice (D) goes too far it's not something we can prove with the passage. Answer choice (E) Writers who successfully cross the generic boundary between poetry and fiction often try their hand at genres such as drama as well. Drama isn't really mentioned in this passage so I don't know what the author thinks about people moving into drama. I know that the author thinks that mixing genres can be good and it's good to not have this strong division between the two genres but not that people then go on to this third genre.

So, answer choice (E) is not my answer. Answer choice (A) is my answer.

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