Self-study
The French novelist Colette (1873–1954) has been widely praised for the vividness of her language. ███ ████ ███████ ████████ ████ ███ ██████ ███ ███████████ ██ █████████ █████ ██████████ ████ ██████ ██ ███████ ████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ █ ██████ ████████████ ██ █ █████ █████████ ██████ ██ ███ ████ ██ ██ ████████ ██████ ██ ███ █████ ████ █████████ ██████ ██████ ██████████ █████ █████████ █████ ██████████
Summary
The author concludes that Colette’s novels address important moral questions. She bases her claim on the fact that each of Colette’s novels is a poetic condensation of a major emotional crisis of an ordinary person, and that these crises almost always raise important moral questions.
Notable Assumptions
This can be a tricky question, as the author makes several subtle assumptions:
(1) A poetic condensation of a moral crisis is still able to address that crisis. Something may get lost in translation, so we must assume this condensed form is still able to address it.
(2) Emotional crises almost always raise important moral questions, but we don’t know if Colette’s books are the exception. We must assume her books actually do raise these questions.
(3) If the above assumptions are true and Colette’s books raise important moral questions, we must assume the books are not indifferent to them. It’s possible to raise a moral question without caring about it, so the author must assume this to be true.
15.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ██ █████ ███ ████████ ████████
a
Critics who suggest ████ █████████ ██████ ███ ███████████ ██ █████ █████ █████████ ██ ███ ████ ███████ █████████████ ███ ████████ █████████████
(A) offers information that could provide a reason why critics claim Colette’s novels don’t address important moral questions, but we don’t care about the critics. Their motives do not affect whether or not Colette’s novels address these questions.
b
A novel that ██████████ █████████ █ █████ █████████ ██████ ████ ███ ████ ██ ██ ███████████ ██ ███ █████████ █████ █████████ ██████ ██ ████ ███████
If (B) is not true, and books that poetically condense major emotional crises don’t care about those crises, then the critics are correct, and Colette’s books are indifferent to the moral questions they raise.
c
To deserve the █████ ██ ██████ ████ ███████ ███ █████████ █ ██████████ ████ ████ ███████ ██████ ████ █████████ █████ ██████████
We don’t know if Colette deserves the praise she has received, so this doesn’t affect our argument. In any case, it’s far too strong of an answer, as we don’t care about novelists other than Colette.
d
The vividness of █████████ ████████ ███ ███ ██████ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ █████████████
The information about the language Colette uses is purely contextual and entirely irrelevant to the argument. This answer choice doesn’t connect this already-useless information to the argument in any way, so it is not necessary.
e
Colette's purpose in ██████████ ██████████ █████████ ██████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ██████████ ██ ███ ██████ ███ ██ ███████ ████ ██ ███ █████████ █████ █████████ ██ ███ █████
We do not care about what purposes Colette had for the way she wrote her novels, if any. And even if she didn’t intend for her novels to explore important moral questions, it’s possible they did anyway.