Q15

[episcopoandrew]

Alright I'll give this one a shot because I got it wrong.
On my first run through of all the answer choices, I eliminated A, C, and E, leaving B and D.
A) The biographers saw Watteau's work about the aristocracy and thought that this image conjured up positive images, thus they thought it reflected reality during Watteau's time, it didn't 'transcend' it. Nor do we know that this was a typical eighteenth-century talent. Eliminate.
B) Keep it for now.
C) Lack of access to historical source material? Definitely didn't read this. Out of scope. Also, the passage says in lines 36-38 that the admirers ignored facts about Watteau's past, implying that they knew it wasn't as happy as his art made it seem, so it wasn't a lack of sources, but more of a denial of it. Eliminate.
D) Keep for now.
E) Political bias towards aristocracies? Definitely didn't read this. Eliminate.

Now we're down to B and D. I chose B, and I remember the admirers willfully opposed determinism. This was talked about in lines 40-45ish. However, lines 15-22 end with the same phrase 'witty and amiable' as is used in the question stem for this question. Those lines seem to support that answer choice much more clearly now that I read them again than B. I think the passage actually says that the admirers' opposition to determinism is a reason why they denied Watteau's tragic life even when they knew about it. Opposing determinism didn't conjure up images of happiness and prosperity, the images that Watteau painted did, which is (D).