Q27

[irini101]

I narrow down to two contenders: A and C and they just differ in one word: "unwilling" and "not constrained"; I find both correct.

Could any one help and suggest how to choose between these two and according to which part of the passage?

Thanks very much!

[ohthatpatrick]

This question is testing the central distinction of the passage:

domestic novelists
vs.
late 19th century novelists

But even more specifically, the question stem addresses the "differing conceptions of fiction", which we know was the big money idea that begins in line 24 of the 2nd paragraph.

The domestic novels were meant to be "indistinguishably a novel, a child-rearing manual, and a tract on Christian duty".

Meanwhile, these "more didactic aims are absent" from the late 19th century style.

As you were comparing (A) to (C), you did a great job of isolating the difference. What Jewett UNWILLING to write about kids and religion or just NOT CONSTRAINED to write about kids and religion?

The answer to this question lies somewhere in the passage. You either need to find proof that she was UNWILLING or proof that she was NOT CONSTRAINED.

The two excerpts I just gave you from the end of the 2nd paragraph are how I would prove to myself that (C) is supported.

Moreover, nothing in the passage portrayed Jewett as being anti-kids or anti-religion, so 'unwilling' seems a bit harsh. 'Unconstrained' just means she was not pressured by contemporary standards of fiction to focus on kids and religion, the way that a domestic novelist of the mid 19th century would have been.

Let me know if you remain unconvinced.

[irini101]

You have explained the difference between the two nick-picky contenders very clearly! I will also apply the thinking pattern to other similar situations. Thanks a lot!

[JorieB701]

I found this question interesting because it's asking about what the differing conceptions of fiction between the two can serve to answer- but the correct answer choice is literally just the only question that can be answered by the passage at all. Also, the answer to the question could feasibly be, "because she wasn't actually a domestic novelist," or something like that.. So in essence, the answer to the question posed in C, ends up being the author's main point of the passage.

Is this a pattern? Do these "serve to answer which question," questions with a narrowed focus, typically function this way? Or could you possibly have a question that could be answered by the passage, but be wrong because it wouldn't answer the specific focus referred to in the question stem?

[ChadC139]

This question is testing the central distinction of the passage:

domestic novelists
vs.
late 19th century novelists

But even more specifically, the question stem addresses the "differing conceptions of fiction", which we know was the big money idea that begins in line 24 of the 2nd paragraph.

The domestic novels were meant to be "indistinguishably a novel, a child-rearing manual, and a tract on Christian duty".

Meanwhile, these "more didactic aims are absent" from the late 19th century style.

As you were comparing (A) to (C), you did a great job of isolating the difference. What Jewett UNWILLING to write about kids and religion or just NOT CONSTRAINED to write about kids and religion?

The answer to this question lies somewhere in the passage. You either need to find proof that she was UNWILLING or proof that she was NOT CONSTRAINED.

The two excerpts I just gave you from the end of the 2nd paragraph are how I would prove to myself that (C) is supported.

Moreover, nothing in the passage portrayed Jewett as being anti-kids or anti-religion, so 'unwilling' seems a bit harsh. 'Unconstrained' just means she was not pressured by contemporary standards of fiction to focus on kids and religion, the way that a domestic novelist of the mid 19th century would have been.

Let me know if you remain unconvinced.

Hi Patrick,

I too narrowed this question down to A and C, but I remain unconvinced that C makes more sense than A.

The evidence you've sighted seems to support A just as well as it supports C -- Jewett's "high-cultural" conception of the novel would seem to reflect her willingness to abandon the more didactic aims of the mid-19th century novelists for a more aesthetically pleasing novel as an end in itself. If choosing to abandon the formation of a novel as "a child-rearing manual, and a tract on Christian duty" is a result of a lack of constraint due to deviance from the old domestic norm, it seems just as much to reflect her willingness to forgo writing about children and religion and instead create a novel about what she *was* willing to write about.

As far as connotations and degree of strength of the answer are concerned, 'unwilling' doesn't to me seem to indicate a harsh sort of opposition to children or religion, only a lack of willingness to write about them, while 'not constrained' seems to connote freedom from a more stringent sort of pressure than just contemporary practice - perhaps from some sort of legal constraints on the what sorts of novels are permissible.

Perhaps I am stubbornly clinging to the answer I chose beyond reason, but it seems that it was a willing choice to forego the old paradigm and, in service of writing a high-cultural novel, write about domestic life without including children or religious themes.

Is there some other sort of evidence I might be missing, or am I just a little bit mentally constrained by a preference for my own answer?

Thanks