The stem is that "The author presents the example of Delacroix in order to illustrate which one..."
After reading the stem, I looked back at the passage to freshen my mind. I knew that the information was in the final paragraph so I glazed over it because it really wasn't long at all. The topic sentence of the paragraph is that "It is also important to remember that not all decisive changes in art are quickly followed by dramatic events..." Because this paragraph is only about Delacroix and this is the topic sentence, it would make sense that the point of the example is to say something like, "Changes in art aren't always followed by big world events."
(A) Has the causal connection backwards and reversed. Social and political changes do not lead to important innovations. The author is more saying that artistic innovations don't lead to social and political changes.
(C) This is not the point of the paragraph. We are talking about one particular artist here - Delacroix - first of all. In addition, This would actually go against the main point of the article, which is never a good thing.
(D) This is just completely unsupported by the paragraph. We don't know what "best achieves" stylistic innovations.
Now it is down to (B) and (E).
(E) is definitely supported by the passage in Line 50: "Most art historians have decided that Delacroix adjusted himself to..." However, my problem with this is two-fold:
- (1) I don't know if this is really the purpose. Sure, it is supported but the purpose more seems to do with the topic sentence of the paragraph.
(2) The stem talks about "the author presenting the example..." What is the relationship between this and the "most historians" part in line 49?
I like (B) because it goes with the main point of the paragraph. I just don't know it really sums up the purpose. I feel like there is a big learning opportunity here so does anyone have any ideas for me?
Just want to make that clear for anyone reading.