Too focused on fitting film styles into definitions while ignoring how audiences engage with films
Passage Style
Critique or debate
11.
The author of the passage █████ ████ ██████ █████ ████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ███████████
Question Type
Author’s perspective
Implied
This is an Inference question from the author’s perspective. This question doesn’t give a clear indication of where we should look in the passage. Remember that the right answer will have support from the passage, and the author’s main point is the criticism of Bordwell’s definition of classical style films.
Unsupported. We know that Berkeley’s films are an example of musicals with performance sequences that don’t contribute to the narrative; the passage does not indicate that Berkeley’s films are unique in doing this. This could be something that lots of musicals do.
10%
b
The use of █████████ ████████ ██ █████ ██ ███ █████████ ███ ███ ███████ ████ ███████████
Unsupported. The author never describes the technical elements of classical era films as simplistic. There is no indication of the simplicity/complexity of the technical elements used in these films.
19%
c
The film genres ███████ ██ ███ █████████ ███ ████ ███ ███████ ████ ████████████ ███████ █████████████ ██████
Unsupported. We only know that the genres of comedy, melodrama, and musical evolved from live theater. We don’t know that all popular genres evolved from noncinematic popular entertainment forms––there could be other popular genres of the time that weren’t derived from noncinematic popular entertainment forms.
This is supported in P3, where the author says that knowledge of genre is acquired and viewers eventually accept cinematic images as conventional.
58%
e
Most musical films ██ ███ █████ ████████████ ██ ███████ █████████ ████████
Unsupported. We know that Berkeley’s musicals were not realistic, according to the author. The passage doesn’t indicate that most of the 1930s musicals were realistic.
3%
Difficulty
59% of people who answer get this correct
This is a difficult question.
It is slightly harder than the average question in this passage.
CURVE
Score of students with a 50% chance of getting this right
25%143
157
75%170
Analysis
Author’s perspective
Author’s perspective
Stems that ask us to find an answer the author is most likely to agree with.
Stems asking us to infer an idea implied by the claims in the passage (as opposed to identifying an idea that appears explicitly). Similar to most strongly supported questions in LR.
Critique or debate passages contain multiple points of view on a particular subject. Sometimes the author takes sides and participates in the critique or debate, other times the author merely reports the debate.
