#9 - Specific Reference, Must Be True

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (A).

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[Roadto170]

When evaluating this passage, which I went 7/8, I struggled to understand some of the language utilized. This was especially pertinent during the third paragraph (source of this question). Mainly, I came down to answer choices A and D when attempting to determine what "protest painting" most likely referred to. I believe that the excerpt below most accurately describes where I should be looking...

"Bearden painted scenes of the hardships of the period; the work was powerful, the scenes grim and brooding. Through his depiction of the unemployed in New York’s Harlem he was able to move beyond the usual "protest painting" of the period to reveal instances of individual human suffering."

If A, "depicted general scenes of social hardship and group suffering" is what protest painting did, then how is Bearden moving beyond it by doing it. This does not seem analogous to "depiction of unemployed"!

Consequently, after having eliminated B,C and D... I eliminated A and selected D (although to be fair I was not super certain on D).

How does my approach sound? Where did I err in my logic? Thank you for your time and insights.

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Roadto170,

You cited the relevant lines of the passage to answer the question, but unfortunately it looks like you misinterpreted the meaning of the key sentence.

I've reposted the relevant sentence from the passage and emphasized certain words in bold.

"Bearden painted scenes of the hardships of the period; the work was powerful, the scenes grim and brooding. Through his depiction of the unemployed in New York’s Harlem he was able to move beyond the usual "protest painting" of the period to reveal instances of individual human suffering."

This sentence tells us that Bearden painted scenes of the hardships of the period, but that Bearden was able to "move beyond" these other paintings of the period to reveal "individual human suffering."

First, if Bearden's paintings of hardship "moved beyond" these other paintings, this suggests that these other paintings were also paintings of hardships, but that Bearden's painting achieved or accomplished something that these other hardship paintings didn't. This is why they "moved beyond" the typical "usual" hardship paintings. In other words, if these other paintings had nothing to do with hardships, then it wouldn't really make sense in the context of the passage to say Bearden's paintings moved beyond them, as they would be completely unrelated.

Now the next question might be how did Bearden's hardship paintings "move beyond" these other paintings? What was Bearden able to accomplish that these other hardship paintings did not? The relevant sentence tells us that his paintings revealed/depicted "individual" human suffering (as opposed to general suffering or group suffering).

Second, the description of these other paintings as "the usual protest painting of the period" gives a clue as to what these paintings depicted. These paintings were made during the Great Depression and were presumably protesting something. The Great Depression was a time of severe economic hardship, unemployment, poverty, etc.. It seems reasonable that these "protest paintings" would be protesting the terrible economic conditions by showing the hardships that people were suffering at the time.

The context of the passage makes Answer A correct.

As for Answer D, there is no reason to assume that the usual protests paintings of the period emphasized the experiences of African Americans. While Bearden's paintings depicted African Americans, the passage is not comparing his paintings to other paintings depicting African Americans. In addition, the experiences of African Americans at the time included more than just hardships, as discussed in the fourth paragraph of the passage.

[Roadto170]

That is totally fair. I guess I just thought that because Bearden "suceeded so well at portraying the realities of African American life" that this would need to play a role somewhere in the passage.

Anyways, there is no reason to argue further for D since it is incorrect and you have eloquently made the claim for why the testmakers thought A was correct. Other than just reading closer, any thoughts for how I could approach this type of problem better to answer it correctly next time?

Like you said, I identified the correct lines of passage and eliminated several pretenders. Just frustrating that the correct answer was so close, yet I cost myself by choosing the wrong answer.

Thanks!

[miriamson07]

Hi powerscore,

I can almost agree with answer choice A (which I know is the right one regardless)...except for the word "general" in "general scenes"! I interpret "general scenes" to mean scenes that are, quite literally, general rather than specific. At first, I thought it was much more reasonable to assume that the protest paintings would be about African American life during the Great Depression, since that was the topic of the discussion. However, I now see that it can be a stretch to assume so. But I still do not see how we can assume the paintings were "general" rather than "specific," unless I interpret the word "general" differently -- or rather, less literally. The new interpretation that would make the answer choice work for me would be that the scenes could be either general or specific in their literal senses, and the word "general" is only used to indicate "scenes in general," if that makes sense.

Should the word "general" indeed be interpreted this way?

[Dana D]

Hey Miriamson,

The use of quotations around "protest painting" gives us a clue that this is some sort of typical scene with shared characteristics able to be generalized under the umbrella of this phrase. Here, the word general is not very significant to the answer choice - if you got rid of it, answer choice (A) still conveys the same message in my opinion. If you didn't like answer choice (A) intially because of that one word, I would imagine it was still a contender for a right answer - what other answer choice did you favor? If nothing else, you should be able to settle on (A) as the best answer by process of elimination.

Best
Dana