Self-study
Several critics have claimed that any contemporary poet who writes formal poetry—poetry that is rhymed and metered—is performing a politically conservative act. ████ ██ ███████ ██████ ████████ █████ ███████ ███ ███████ ███████ ███ ████████████ █████ █████ ██████ ██ ██████ ███████████ ██████ ███ ███ ███ ███ ██████████ ███████████ ███████████ ██████████
Summary
Writing formal poetry is not an inherently politically conservative act. This is because there are politically progressive feminists who write formal poetry.
Missing Connection
The support is about political identity, but the conclusion is about political acts. Those aren’t necessarily the same thing. A person could identify overall as a political progressive, but sometimes commit politically conservative acts. Consequently, to guarantee his conclusion, the author must assume that a political progressive can never commit politically conservative acts.
19.
The conclusion drawn above follows █████████ ██ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ██ ████████
a
No one who ██ █ ████████ ██ ████ ███████████ █████████████
(A) is about political identity, but the author’s conclusion is about political acts. (A) would prove that these poets can’t be described as conservatives—but it wouldn’t prove that they’re incapable of conservative acts.
b
No poet who ██████ ████████ ██ █████████ ██████ ██ ███████████ █████████████
This doesn’t tell us anything about politically conservative acts, so it can’t be the right answer.
c
No one who ██ ███████████ ███████████ ██ ███████ ██ ██████████ █ ███████████ ████████████ ████
If so, the progressive poets writing formal poetry could not perform a politically conservative act. Consequently, not every instance of writing formal poetry could be a conservative act. (C) would therefore guarantee the author’s conclusion.
d
Anyone who sometimes ██████ ██████ ████ ██ ███ ███████████ ████████████ █████ ██████ ██████ ████ ██ ███████████ █████████████
(D) is about whether the poetry itself is conservative; the author’s conclusion is about whether the act of writing formal poetry is conservative.
e
The content of █ ██████ █████ ███ ███ ██████ █████ ██ ███ ████ ████████ ██████ ██ ███████████ ████ █████████ █████████████ ██ ████ ███ ████ ████ █████
(E) is about the political consequences of a poet’s work; the author’s conclusion is about the the act of writing itself. We have no reason to assume that there’s a connection between the two here.