PrepTest 116 - Section 1 - Passage 3 - Question 21

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Reader-response theory, a type of literary theory that arose in reaction to formalist literary criticism, has endeavored to shift the emphasis in the interpretation of literature from the text itself to the contributions of readers to the meaning of a text. ███

Reader-response theory · Emphasizes what readers bring to meaning of a literary work

Proponents of reader-response theory · Text alone doesn't have meaning

It gets meaning from what readers bring to the text (assumptions, ways of reading). This makes multiple interpretations of a text likely.

Formalists · Focus on the text alone

Reader-response theory leads to fragmented views of a text.

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Author's perspective · Formalists' view is too narrow

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Formalists' argument · Formalism is objective

Reader-response theory has no standards and leads to multiple meanings of a text. Authors in fact intend one meaning and critics should try to find it.

Author's critique · Literary works can have multiple meanings

Meanings are created by interaction between texts and readers.

Benefit of reader-response theory · Emphasizing readers can uncover new meanings of a work

We've always had multiple interpretations of important works.

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Concession / Benefit · Can lead to unfair interpretations, but also legitimate new interpretations

Passage Style

Critique or debate

21.

Which one of the following ███ ████ ██████████ ██ ████████ ████ ███ ███████████ ██ ███ ████████

Question Type

Implied

This is an Inference question. While this question doesn’t direct us to any specific part of the text, we can remember that the author supports the reader-response theory (which allows for a wide range of perspectives) and opposes the formalist approach (which is objective and text-based).

Formalists believe that ███████████ ███████ ███ █████ ██ ███ ████ █████ ████ ████ ██ ████ ███ ████ ██ ███████ ████████ ██ █ ████████ █████

This is supported in P1. The formalists believe that studying the text alone leads to a unified view of a work, meaning that critics who read a work of literature this way will come to the same or similar interpretations.

73%

Critical approaches similar ██ █████ █████████ ██ █████████ ███ ████ ████ ██ █████████ █████ ████ ██████ ███ ██████ ███ ███████████ ██ █████

Unsupported. The author does not mention any predecessor to formalism, so this cannot be inferred from the text.

Formalists would not ████ ███ ███████ ██ █ ████ █████ ██████ ███ ███ ██████ ██ ██ ████ ███ ███ ██████████ ████████

Unsupported. If the author did not intend for a text to have one particular meaning, it could be the case that the author intended several meanings. In this situation, it could totally be the case that the formalists would identify one (or several) of those meanings.

18%

A literary work ████ ███ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ████ ████████ █████ ███████████████ ██████ ████ ███ ██████████ ██ ███ ██████ █████████████████ ███████ ███ ███ ██████████

Unsupported. The passage doesn’t describe any situations where the reader-response theory will rarely be successful, so this can’t be inferred from the text.

Formalism is much █████ ███ ███ ████ █████████ ████ ███████████████ ███████

Unsupported. The text does not compare how many people follow each literary theory.

PrepTest 116 - Section 1 - Passage 3 - Question 21

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