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PrepTest 73, Passage 2, Question 12

Transcript

Question 12 asks what the author would agree with, that makes it an inference question, and it has the word except at the end. So we call that an inference except question. On a normal inference question, you're being asked to find an answer choice that you have enough information in the passage to prove with certainty. Something that although it's not directly stated in the passage, it's provable from what is in the passage.

Since this is an except question, four of the answer choices will be things that are provable. And then one answer choice will either be unprovable. That is, you won't have any information about it or it'll actually be contradicted by the information you've been given. Since the question just asks for what the author would agree with, that doesn't give us much to go on as to where we're gonna find the answers.

And since there's four answers that are gonna be provable, we're probably gonna be bouncing around anyway through the various parts of the passage. So best just to go answer choice by answer choice and see what we can prove. So, answer choice A, a less realistic medium can be more conducive to suspension of disbelief than a more realistic medium. This fits with what we know about Cameron because the author thinks that the camera is more realistic.

And yet, it is less conducive to the suspension of disbelief than paintings and the theater. They're less realistic, but you can suspend your disbelief more. So answer choice A is definitely something that the author agree with. Answer choice B, amateurishness is a positive quality in some works of art. Well, yeah, because Cameron was amateuristic, and the author likes Cameron.

Answer choice C, what might appear to be an incongruity in a narrative photograph can actually enhance its aesthetic value. Once again, that's the sort of thing that the author liked about Cameron. The incongruities, the little mundane, weird funny bits that showed up in the pictures, that's what made them good. So that was enhancing the aesthetic value.

Answer choice D, we're sometimes aware of both the real and the imaginary persona of an actor in a drama. This is probably the hardest of these to prove, but it is provable. Mainly drama is talked about towards the end of the second paragraph. And if we go back there, we're told that we're always aware of a photograph's doubleness, which is of the imaginary and real personas at the same time.

Theater can transcend the doubleness at least the some of the time. So some of the time it doesn't transcend the doubleness. So, some of the time, just like narrative pictures, we're aware of each figure's imaginary and real personas at the same time. And so since we've been able to prove A through D, that means that the answer must be answer choice E.

A work of art succeeds only to the extent that it realizes the artist's intentions. And we know that this is actually something that the author would oppose, because Cameron didn't realize her intentions. And yet, the author thinks that her art did succeed. So the author can't believe E, and thus, it is the answer to our inference except question.

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