Self-study
People often praise poems for their truth. ███ ██ █████ ████ ██████████ ████ ████████████ ███████████ ██ ███ █████████ █████ ██ █ ████ ██ ██████████ ████ ██ ███ ███████████ ███████ ██ ████ ██████ ███ █████ ████████ ███ █████ ██ ██████ ██████████ ███ ██ ████ █████████ ██ ████ ██████ ████ ███████
How the Argument Fits Together
The first sentence is context: people often praise poems for being true. The author then pushes back against this tendency. She concludes that expressing true propositions does not contribute to a poem's aesthetic merit.
Why does the author believe this? She gives us two premises that work together:
Premise 1: Most of the commonplace beliefs of most people are true. In other words, truth is extremely common.
Premise 2: Whatever the basis of poetic excellence is, it must be rare rather than common.
The logic connecting these premises to the conclusion: if the basis of poetic excellence must be something rare, and truth is something common, then truth can't be the basis of poetic excellence. Therefore, expressing true propositions doesn't contribute to a poem's aesthetic merit.
Notice that neither premise alone gets us to the conclusion. Knowing that truth is common doesn't matter unless we also know that poetic excellence requires something rare. And knowing that poetic excellence requires something rare doesn't matter unless we also know that truth is common. The two premises need each other.
Role of the Referenced Claim
The question asks about the role of the final sentence: "Whatever the basis of poetic excellence is, it must certainly be rare rather than common." As explained above, this is one of two premises that work together to support the conclusion. It's offered alongside the claim that truth is common, and together these two claims support the conclusion that truth doesn't contribute to poetic excellence.
22.
Which one of the following ████ ██████████ █████████ ███ ████ ██████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ ███ █████ ████ ████████ ███ █████ ██ ██████ ██████████ ███ ██ ████ █████████ ██ ████ ██████ ████ ███████
a
It is the ███████ ██████████ █████ ██ ███ █████████
The conclusion is that expressing true propositions doesn't contribute to a poem's aesthetic merit. The referenced claim supports that conclusion by establishing that poetic excellence must be based on something rare. If you think the referenced claim is the conclusion, ask yourself: what other line in the stimulus is offered to prove that the basis of poetic excellence must be rare? There isn't one. The author simply asserts it without support.
b
It is a ███████ █████ ██ ███████████ ████ ███████ ████████ ██ ████████ ██ ███████ ███ ██████████ ███████████
This accurately describes the role of the referenced claim. It's a premise that works alongside another premise (that most commonplace beliefs are true) to support the conclusion. The argument uses both the claim that truth is common and the claim that poetic excellence requires something rare to reach the conclusion that truth doesn't contribute to poetic excellence.
c
It is a ███████ ███████ ██ ███ ████ ███████ ███ ███ ██████████ ███████████
The referenced claim is a premise, so (C) gets that part right. But it's not the sole support for the conclusion. The argument also relies on the premise that most commonplace beliefs are true. Without that premise, we'd know poetic excellence requires something rare, but we wouldn't know that truth is common, and we'd have no basis for concluding that truth fails to meet the rarity requirement.
d
It is background ███████████ █████ ██ ███████ ████ ███ ███████ ███████ ███ ███ ██████████ ███████████
The referenced claim isn't just background information. It plays an active role in the argument's logic. Without the claim that poetic excellence must be based on something rare, the author has no reason to conclude that truth (even though it's common) can't contribute to poetic excellence. Background information, by contrast, sets up the context without doing any logical work. The first sentence ("People often praise poems for their truth") is an example of genuine background information in this stimulus.
e
It is a ███████████ ███ █████ ███ ████████ █████ ██ ███████ ██ ████████████
The author doesn't try to explain why the basis of poetic excellence must be rare. She simply asserts that it must be and uses that assertion, alongside another premise, to support her conclusion. If the argument sought to explain this claim, we'd expect to see other statements offered as reasons for why poetic excellence requires rarity. Instead, the claim is treated as a starting point, not something the argument is trying to explain.