Self-study
The striking similarities between Greek temples and subsequent Roman villas testify to the fact that great architects typically draw inspiration from the work of other architects. ████ ███████ ██ ███████████ ████ ███ █████ ████████ █ ███████ ████ ██ ████████████ ████████ █████████ ██ ████████ ████ ███ ████ ████ ██████████ ████ ████████ ███ █████ ███ ███████ ███ ██████ █████ ██ ███████████ ██ █████████ █ █████ █████████ ███████ █████ █████████████ ████████████ ███ ██ ████████ █████ ███ ███████████ ████ ███ ███████ ████ █ ████ ██████ ██████
Stimulus Summary
The author points to similarities between Greek temples and later Roman villas as evidence that great architects "draw inspiration" from the work of other architects. This doesn't mean these architects are unoriginal — according to the author, building according to formulas will lead either to "bland" or "disastrous" results, not to good buildings. Great architects, meanwhile, synthesize past forms with present ones to create something new and richer.
Strategy: Inference Question
With a stimulus like this one, which contains several statements and a lot of flowery language, it's important to make sure we're following the logical flow and picking up inferences along the way. Let's start with the first sentence: if the similarities between Greek temples and later Roman villas are evidence of how "great architects" operate, then we have to infer that at least some of the architects of Roman villas were "great architects." For the next sentence to make sense, we have to infer that a "slavish lack of originality" is essentially the same thing as "building according to formulas," since the clause about "building according to formulas" comments on the clause about a lack of originality. The last sentence, starting with "by contrast," allows us to infer that great architects don't build according to formulas or have a slavish lack of originality. We could try to combine the inferences we've made so far into more inferences, but since we've picked up on a few, it makes more sense to go to the answer choices and proceed by process of elimination.
2.
Which one of the following ███ ██ ████████ ████ ███ ████████
a
Roman architects designed ████ █████████ ████ ██████ ██ ██ ███████████ ██ ████████
We can't draw this inference from the stimulus. All we know about Roman architects is that at least some of them were "great" — and because they were "great," we know that at least some Roman architects typically did not design buildings with "little or no originality of thought." But we can't infer anything about whether Roman architects definitely did design some buildings in an unoriginal way.
b
The essence of ████ ████████████ ██ ████████ ████████████ ██ ███████████ ███████
If anything, the stimulus seems to suggest the opposite. The author describes "great architects" as not simply following past models, but as creating something "fresh" from those past models. For this to count as "faithful reproduction" would at the very least require a more specific definition of that phrase, which we don't have. As things stand, we certainly can't infer (B) from the stimulus.
c
Buildings with unfamiliar █████ ███ ██████ ██ ██ ██████ █████ ██ █████████████ ██████████
Incorrect. The stimulus says that it is buildings designed according to a formula — in other words, buildings that presumably have familiar forms — that will either be bland or a disaster. The stimulus doesn't suggest anything about buildings with "unfamiliar forms" turning out in one of these two ways.
d
Some Roman architecture ███████████ ███ ████████ ██ █████ █████████████ ████████████ ███ ██ ████████ ██████
Correct. Remember that from the first sentence, we have to infer that at least some Roman architects were great architects. Since great architects, according to the last sentence, create "fresh architectural compositions out of familiar forms," we can infer that some Roman architecture serves as an example of such creation.
e
Some Greek temples ████ ███ ██████████ ████████ ██ █████ ███████
The only statement about specific architectural models that we are given is the implication that Greek temples themselves served as models for some Roman architects. The stimulus doesn't let us infer anything about whether Greek temples themselves had models or not.