Q12

[wguwguwgu]

Hi! I didn't know which one to pick here. I dislike A as much as the others.

The passage says" (his paintings) combine ...with evidence of an extensive knowledge o the cultural history of various African peoples.

How can one direct the conclusion that his paintings DIRECTLY contain "figure or images" from African artisans? Maybe the influence (evidence) is much more subtle!

Isn't this a huge leap from the passage that normally would be considered a wrong answer?

many thanks in advance!

[ohthatpatrick]

Yeah, I totally hear you.

For those of us who know we should prove our answers with line references, the correspondence between (A) and 42-43 is super weak.

However, the question stem does not say "what can be inferred" but "what is most supported". In both RC and LR, it's important to realize that the latter phrase potentially allows for more leeway in stretching what you've been told.

And in modern RC sections, I've found that there are a few questions per section in which the correct answer is definitely better than the others but not as "provable" from the text as what I'm used to.

We really have to choose this stinker based on the others being even farther removed from what we're told in lines 42-43 (and trusting that those lines really are our only window of text to consider).

(B) is close to the previous sentence, which says that Porter's goals in painting better attuned him to certain subtleties in his research. But "fueled his interest in art history" is quite a leap.

(C) there's no evidence Porter's paintings appeared in his book

(D) "deliberate" and "prove" make this very extreme (on top of being unfounded)

(E) "after ALL" his work had been completed makes this very extreme (on top of being unfounded).

So it's definitely either stretch 42-43 to pick (A) or stretch the previous sentence to pick (B). Ultimately, it seems like (A) is the safer idea, the smaller stretch.

And welcome to the world of hating the correct answer.

Good luck.

[Cavetisy]

I would like to attempt to show that in addition to the above explanation A) is provable and certainly less of a stretch to conclude than B) based on the following.

Lines 34-38 contain a sentence that says Porter's book contains the issue of unique ties to African artisanship. Also, the next sentence in lines 38-43 says, "Porter may have been especially attuned to these ties because of his conscious effort to maintain them (the unique ties to African artisanship) in his own paintings... Therefore, via referential phrasing we can conclude that Porter's personal paintings sometimes contain African artisanship, which isn't too far from what A) is saying.