Q9

[tuh119]

I am not sure why Chopin will most likely to agree that the local colorists idealization of settings and objects previously related with women's culture was misguided.

Please help!

[bbirdwell]

The answer to this question is in lines 29-30 and is further supported in 38-39.

The local colorists, as we learn in the second paragraph, mourned the demise of "women's culture" and invested its images with mythic significance...

In other words, the last lines of the second paragraph tell us what the local colorists were all about. The next paragraphs tells us how Chopin was different.

Note the LSAT-typical structure here of "local colorists = xyz..." UNLIKE them Chopin = abc...

(A) misguided? Yes! She "did not share their nostalgia for the past"... she did not idealize women's culture, but instead shared stories of loneliness and isolation.

The other four are easily eliminated.

(B) we know nothing regarding Chopin's opinion of the local colorists' "emotional impact."

(C) we do not know that they were inspiration for the New Women at all, much less do we know whether this was their "chief contribution."

(D) this is the opposite of what is said about them.

(E) this is the opposite of what is said about them.

[geverett]

Answer choice A is a bit of a logical leap in my opinion. Just because she doesn't share in their opinion does not mean she thinks they are misguided. Thoughts?

[noah]

Answer choice A is a bit of a logical leap in my opinion. Just because she doesn't share in their opinion does not mean she thinks they are misguided. Thoughts?

(A) doesn't say they are misguided, but that their idealization is.

Regardless, the other answers stink

[rostov]

So the assumption is that people who do things differently think of each other as misguided. That to me comes out of nowhere, especially for literature.

[austindyoung]

So I got this one wrong.... twice.

Oh yes. See, (A) just seems too strong, right? Usually the correct AC seems more tame.

Well, here's the catch that I finally noticed. You'll find this in LR as well.

Now, it's true that there will always be 4 Incorrect and 1 Correct AC.

But, did you notice the stem says "most likely"?

Ya. When that happens, sometimes we have to give the ACs a little wiggle room. Sometimes the correct answer will be as logically tight as you can get- and sometimes we see there are 4 bad answers and 1 that reigns supreme, even though it could have been "worded better."

So, after seeing why these other 4 ACs are clearly wrong wen compared to the passage- we can rest assured that (A) is the best we have.

[andrewgong01]

I am unsure with how "B" got eliminated. To me it seems like "B" is saying Chopin agrees that colorists' style had little emotional impact. In the passage it said that Chopin adopted the colorists' style because it allowed her to tell her stories without resorting to the sentimental stories she read as a child (which sounds like they are emotional stories) and she can now tell the stories in an "uninflected manner", which seems like it is told in a "scientific detachment" style. Thus, by adopting such a style for the effect, it seems like Chopin would agree with "B" . And Q10's answer says Chopin wrote in a "detached narrative stance"

However, at the same time, I do now also see why "A" is consistent with the text since she did not want(or share the need to) to revive the nostalgia for the past



Also, generally speaking, for these questions that are not "big picture main idea" or narrow questions (the ones that give a line number) should we still go back to the passage and verify the answer choices?

[ohthatpatrick]

On almost every single RC question I do that has "inferred, implies, suggests. or most likely to agree" in its question stem, I am mapping the answer choice I'm picking to a specific line in the passage.

Sometimes, more than one line is needed to support the choice.

Sometimes, the extreme wording in the other four answers is so tellingly bad that I would be willing to "take my chances" by just picking an answer choice without mapping it to its proof sentence in the passage.

For this question stem, I would re-acquaint myself with what lines are available before I looked at answer choices.

There are two sentences that explicitly link Chopin to the local colorists: line 29-30 and line 38-42.

So I anticipate that the correct answer will either point out the distinction between Chopin's sadder subject matter and that of the LC's or point out the distinction between the LC's nostalgia for domestic womanhood with Chopin's disinterest in dealing with that theme.

In terms of (B), talking about whether something has "emotional impact" is something that would be measured by the reader, not the writer.

The stuff in lines 31-37 is about writing style. Chopin is writing about messed up people, so she's choosing to use a very detached writing style.

The sentimental novels she read as a kid were EXCESSIVELY dramatic. She is trying to avoid their excess, not to avoid emotional impact.

Since she's writing about shocking stuff, it'll probably still have emotional impact, just like an evening news story about something tragic can have a lot of emotional impact even thought it's reported on in a detached way.

As far as whether the local colorists would have emotional impact, who knows? Where's our line reference?

Since the LC's were depicting "new worlds opening up to women", they might have had tons of emotional impact, inspiring young readers who didn't realize they had such options.