Willa Cather

Answer choices

1. A

   Out of Scope: narrative vs. novel2% picked this

   Though Cather preferred to call Death Comes for the Archbishop a narrative rather than a novel, she would be unlikely to view most of

   Passage A never discussed any distinction between narrative and novel. And Passage A never made it seem like Death Comes for the Archbishop was some outlier that stood apart from the rest of Cather's works. So we have no means to support this answer.

   2%
2. B

   Out of Scope: critics' focus2% picked this

   The critics who questioned Cather's abilities as a novelist focused mostly on her failed experiments and ignored her

   Passage A never talks about critics at all, nor alludes to whether Cather's work was heralded or misunderstood by critics. Passage A never suggested that some of Cather's work ventured in the realm of unsuccessful experimentalism, whereas other works were more aesthetically complete. So we don't have any support for this claim.

   2%
3. C

   Out of Scope: novels, not narrative12% picked this

   A model of criticism that takes narrative rather than the novel as its object is likely to result in

   Passage A never talked about the distinction between novel and narrative. However, since Passage A's characterization of Cather's writing seems to align pretty well with Passage B's, if anything we would presume that Passage A would agree with Passage B's assessment of how Cather's works should be critically evaluated. Passage B says that "a model of criticism which takes as its object narrative rather than the novel seems exactly appropriate to Cather's work, which is the opposite of what this answer is saying.

   12%
4. D

   Out of Scope: embraced conventions8% picked this

   Critics who questioned Cather's abilities as a novelist fail to perceive the extent to which Cather actually embraced the

   This answer makes it sound like Passage A wants to make a strong case for the idea that Cather was a great novelist, one who very much embraced the conventions of the realistic novel. Passage A never talks about "the realistic novel" at all. And the portrayal we get of Cather in both passages is that she's going against the mainstream. She's a little weird. She's different. She's in a club with Turgenev and Tolstoy. We don't see her embracing conventions.

   8%
5. E

   Correct76% picked this

   Cather's goal of representing the "thing not named" explains her preference for the bold, simple, and stylized in

   Why this is right

   This answer makes a Causal Claim that we won't necessarily find direct support for in Passage A, but at least Passage A talked about the ideas in this answer choice. The other answer choices all seemed to revolve around this "is she writing novels, or is she writing narrative?" issue that was only found in Passage B. The phrase "bold / simple / stylized in character" comes from the end of Passage B. Passage A tells us that Cather referred to impressionistic aesthetic as "the thing not named", and for her "there is the absolute importance of selection and simplification / art is the fusing of the physical world of settings and actions with the emotional reality of the characters". None of this is actually making the causal claim made in this answer, but it's a reasonable speculation that if A's author were reading passage B, they would be nodding their head in agreement, "Yes, yes ... I agree with all the things you're saying about Cather, and can I just add, 'the thing not named' is the aesthetic goal behind all this." Overall, this correct answer is weirdly unsatisfying because Passage A doesn't really have great support for the idea that Cather preferred bold / stylized characters or landscapes. So this becomes a good reminder that correct answers can be very inadequately supported, as long as they're still the 'best available'. Sometimes it's helpful to remind ourselves that Some Support > No Support. We have at least some scraps of support for this answer, whereas for the others, we had nothing.

   Skill tested: Author Opinion · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

   76%