Who could please explain why E is correct and why C is incorrect?
I couldn't find where the passage mention anything directly about cakewalk as being one of the first cultural forms to cross racial lines in the US.
I thought lines 50-54 & 60-61 support C.
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- ohthatpatrick
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Atticus Finch
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Re: Q16
This question stem is totally open ended, so we should dive into answer choices, beware of overly strong/specific wording, and be willing to hunt for keywords in the answer choices in the passage to confirm/deny the answer.
(A) "largely unknown until" is semi-strong. Did they say this towards the beginning? They do say that Walker is known for having popularized the dance and that the dance was originally developed by AA's.
Do we know that it was largely unknown outside of AA circles until Walker's efforts? Nothing visible supports that strong a claim, but there is some support for it, so I'd keep this on a first pass.
(B) "MAINLY a folk dance" is strong, as is "one of ONLY A HANDFUL of people who performed it professionally". I would defer on this one for now since it has two language strikes against it.
(C) This makes a causal claim, "Walker making the dance popular led to its performance as parody becoming uncommon". We know from lines 25-28, that slaves originally performed the dance to parody slave owners. Do we see that post-popularization this is no longer occurring? No, in fact in lines 28-32, we see that decades later it's being performed as parody by yet another group. So we have negative support for this answer. Lines 50-52 also provide support that even as Walker was popularizing the dance, there were parodies circulating at the time. That last paragraph discusses ways in which Walker helped popularize the dance among three demographics who WEREN'T doing it as parody, but that doesn't establish that Walker made parody uncommon, especially since there is textual evidence that multiple groups used it as parody (African Americans and European Americans) and that the parodies were happening even while Walker was popularizing. Not to mention, when you see the eventual clarity of picking (E) based on explicit support, you'll realize that with (C) we're trying to stretch the passage to support it, whereas with (E) the passage just straight-up ASSERTED it.
(D) "commonly known" is semi-strong. Can we scan for West African and see if we see any claims about people commonly knowing those origins?
"West African" appears in line 10, and then never again. And it doesn't say in line 10 that people grew to know the West African origins.
(E) lines 22-24 say "the cakewalk [became] one of the first cultural forms to cross the racial divide in North America". It's startling to have textual support that sounds THAT similar to the answer choice, but the question stem says "The passage ASSERTS", not "implies / suggests / provides support for".
(A) "largely unknown until" is semi-strong. Did they say this towards the beginning? They do say that Walker is known for having popularized the dance and that the dance was originally developed by AA's.
Do we know that it was largely unknown outside of AA circles until Walker's efforts? Nothing visible supports that strong a claim, but there is some support for it, so I'd keep this on a first pass.
(B) "MAINLY a folk dance" is strong, as is "one of ONLY A HANDFUL of people who performed it professionally". I would defer on this one for now since it has two language strikes against it.
(C) This makes a causal claim, "Walker making the dance popular led to its performance as parody becoming uncommon". We know from lines 25-28, that slaves originally performed the dance to parody slave owners. Do we see that post-popularization this is no longer occurring? No, in fact in lines 28-32, we see that decades later it's being performed as parody by yet another group. So we have negative support for this answer. Lines 50-52 also provide support that even as Walker was popularizing the dance, there were parodies circulating at the time. That last paragraph discusses ways in which Walker helped popularize the dance among three demographics who WEREN'T doing it as parody, but that doesn't establish that Walker made parody uncommon, especially since there is textual evidence that multiple groups used it as parody (African Americans and European Americans) and that the parodies were happening even while Walker was popularizing. Not to mention, when you see the eventual clarity of picking (E) based on explicit support, you'll realize that with (C) we're trying to stretch the passage to support it, whereas with (E) the passage just straight-up ASSERTED it.
(D) "commonly known" is semi-strong. Can we scan for West African and see if we see any claims about people commonly knowing those origins?
"West African" appears in line 10, and then never again. And it doesn't say in line 10 that people grew to know the West African origins.
(E) lines 22-24 say "the cakewalk [became] one of the first cultural forms to cross the racial divide in North America". It's startling to have textual support that sounds THAT similar to the answer choice, but the question stem says "The passage ASSERTS", not "implies / suggests / provides support for".
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