Q27

[tommywallach]

27. (D)
Question Type: Inference (26-34)
For this final inference question, the answer could come from any of the final three paragraphs, each of which describes a way in which Dostoyevsky took issue with the radical critics. To recap, he believed that their definitions of both "reality" and "useful" were limited, and that they ignored "artistic merit" in evaluating works of art. Answer choice (D) addresses this latter concern.

(A) is incorrect because Dostoyevsky did not wish the radical critics to more clearly divide reality and fantasy. He wished them to address the role of fantasy in our construction of reality (i.e. to define "reality" a little more broadly).
(B) is totally backwards. The radical critics already put clarity of pupose ahead of formal aspects when evaluating a literary work.
(C) is directly contradicted in the first paragraph of the passage, where we learn that both the radical critics and Dostoyevsky believed reality to be "literature’s crucial source." Dostoyevsky would not have wanted anyone to eliminate elements of concrete reality from their art (though he might have wanted them to include elements of fantasy as they related to our perception of reality).
(E) may be tempting, but Dostoyevsky never claimed not to understand the radical critics demand for reality to be depicted as it is. He simply disagreed with it.