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- ohthatpatrick
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Atticus Finch
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Re: Q23
Hey, there.
The support for (C) is found in the intro paragraph. The primary focus of this passage is how Dostoyevsky responds to the views of the radical critics.
Their view, beginning on line 5, says that art:
1. should exist only if grounded in concrete reality
and
2. should be useful: through exposing want and injustice, it should contribute to the creation of a new society
References to "useful" throughout the rest of the passage are meant to be understood in relation to this initial definition of the radical critics' point of view.
You mentioned that your support for (B) came from the last paragraph, but I actually think it sounds a lot like the end of the 3rd paragraph (lines 36-41). However, that line reference is how Dostoyevsky defines the term "artistic", not "useful".
LSAC, I'm sure, realizes that people will be scouring the fourth paragraph for the support for Q23, because that's where we see "useful" most prominently used. But since the usage there is already in quotes ... "useful" .... we might have to look back for when the meaning of this term was initially defined.
I hope this helps. Let me know if you have lingering qualms.
The support for (C) is found in the intro paragraph. The primary focus of this passage is how Dostoyevsky responds to the views of the radical critics.
Their view, beginning on line 5, says that art:
1. should exist only if grounded in concrete reality
and
2. should be useful: through exposing want and injustice, it should contribute to the creation of a new society
References to "useful" throughout the rest of the passage are meant to be understood in relation to this initial definition of the radical critics' point of view.
You mentioned that your support for (B) came from the last paragraph, but I actually think it sounds a lot like the end of the 3rd paragraph (lines 36-41). However, that line reference is how Dostoyevsky defines the term "artistic", not "useful".
LSAC, I'm sure, realizes that people will be scouring the fourth paragraph for the support for Q23, because that's where we see "useful" most prominently used. But since the usage there is already in quotes ... "useful" .... we might have to look back for when the meaning of this term was initially defined.
I hope this helps. Let me know if you have lingering qualms.
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- tommywallach
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Atticus Finch
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Re: Q23
23. (C)
Question Type: Identification (5-9, 49-52)
For this question, we must attempt to define what is meant by the word "useful." At first glance, this seems difficult, as both the radical critics and Dostoyevsky used the word, and they tended to disagree on what words meant. However, by comparing the radical critics take on usefulness (lines 5-9) with Dostoyevsky’s (lines 49-52), we can see that there was no disagreement over the definition of the word useful, only over the plausibility of definitively determining how useful something was. The original definition given is something that "contributes to the creation of a new society". This is most similar to answer choice (C).
(A) is quite the opposite of what we want. Dostoyevsky talked about depicting the fantastic, but the radical critics, who were deeply concerned with usefulness, never mention it.
(B) is very tricky. This is what Dostoyevsky defined as "artistic" in a work. It is not used to describe a work of art’s usefulness.
(D), like (A), brings in something that was specific to Dostoyevsky’s opinion on what made good fiction. The radical critics never described "exploding the boundaries" of anything.
(E) is playing off the point of the passage, to advance a particular theory of literature. However, neither Dostoyevsky nor the radical critics believed that the primary use of a work of art was to propone a particular philosophy.
Question Type: Identification (5-9, 49-52)
For this question, we must attempt to define what is meant by the word "useful." At first glance, this seems difficult, as both the radical critics and Dostoyevsky used the word, and they tended to disagree on what words meant. However, by comparing the radical critics take on usefulness (lines 5-9) with Dostoyevsky’s (lines 49-52), we can see that there was no disagreement over the definition of the word useful, only over the plausibility of definitively determining how useful something was. The original definition given is something that "contributes to the creation of a new society". This is most similar to answer choice (C).
(A) is quite the opposite of what we want. Dostoyevsky talked about depicting the fantastic, but the radical critics, who were deeply concerned with usefulness, never mention it.
(B) is very tricky. This is what Dostoyevsky defined as "artistic" in a work. It is not used to describe a work of art’s usefulness.
(D), like (A), brings in something that was specific to Dostoyevsky’s opinion on what made good fiction. The radical critics never described "exploding the boundaries" of anything.
(E) is playing off the point of the passage, to advance a particular theory of literature. However, neither Dostoyevsky nor the radical critics believed that the primary use of a work of art was to propone a particular philosophy.
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