Q14

[pinkdatura]

I am wondering why B and E is out, in my opinion,
B too broad, the role played by socioeconomic in popularizing is producing so diversified needs and cakewalk coincidentally addresses many appeals. But it might not be true it is the socioeconomics causes Cakewalk, the African origin dance, acquired European dance elements
E is addressed by paragraph 2 but not paragraph 3


Sorry for having been asking so many questions. You guys are so helpful:)

[giladedelman]

Thanks for posting!

Our job is to figure out why the author mentions the socioeconomic flux in turn-of-the century America in the third paragraph. In that paragraph, the author explains that the complexity of the cakewalk phenomenon is what enabled it to attract its wide audience; in that era, he goes on, "an art form had to be capable of being many things to many people in order to appeal to a large audience."

So he's mentioning the flux in order to explain why the cakewalk was able to catch on so widely in that era.

(D) is therefore correct. The author is trying to "indicate why a particular cultural environment" -- that is, the flux that characterized turn-of-the-century America -- was favorable to the dance.

(A) is tempting, but the author doesn't say that the cakewalk could only have become popular in such circumstances, just that the circumstances helped.

(B) is also tempting because the author is providing context, but it's context for the cakewalk's popularity, not for the fusion of African and European elements.

(C) is unsupported; the author only talks about the "targets" of parody in the preceding paragraph.

(E) is too narrow in scope. The author is talking about the popularity of the cakewalk in general, not just parodies of it.

Does that answer your question?

[zainrizvi]

I'm a bit confused because sometimes the role of the statement is just summarized by the main point of paragraphs; other times, however, it's more the role that the sentence plays in the specific paragraph.

Is there a specific approach that is correct? Because while I prephrased the answer to this Q, I thought more along the lines of "these factors had to be addressed if cakewalk was to be successful" - it wasn't so much that this environment was favorable for it. I thought that the favorable nature of the environment was referring more ot the mimetic vertigo.

[giladedelman]

Thanks for your question.

We are ALWAYS looking for the same thing with this type of question: the role that the phrase plays in the passage. So your approach was right, but I think you just got a little confused by what was going on in this paragraph.

The main point of the paragraph is indeed to explain that the complex evolution of the cakewalk was what let it catch on so widely. However, the sentence that talks about "the cultural and socioeconomic flux" is doing something more specific: it's telling us why the complex evolution helped the dance's popularity. It was because America was in a state of flux. So this particular phrase is telling us how the cultural environment at the time was favorable to the cakewalk.

Does that answer your question?