The French novelist Colette

Answer choices

1. A

   Out Of Scope: literary achievements2% picked this

   Critics who suggest that Colette's novels are indifferent to great moral questions of her time greatly

   We're only debating whether or not her novels cared about important moral questions. We're not otherwise assessing whether she did or didn't have literary achievements.

   2%
2. B

   Correct67% picked this

   A novel that poetically condenses a major emotional crisis does not have to be indifferent to the important moral

   Why this is right

   We couldn't have predicted this wording. This is where the negation test comes in handy (answers that rule out something using the word "not"). If we negate this, it is a huge objection: "novels that condense a major emotional crisis do have to be indifferent its important moral questions". Since we know that all of Colette's novels poetically condense a major emotional crisis, negating this answer would mean that all of Colette's novels were indifferent to the moral questions raised by that novel. This basically proves the author wrong -- it shows that Colette's novels were indifferent moral questions.

   Skill tested: Necessary Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   67%
3. C

   Out Of Scope: deserve praise3% picked this

   To deserve the level of praise that Colette has received, a novelist's work must concern itself

   This argument is only assessing whether or not her novels are indifferent to moral questions. The author doesn't try to make the case for that by saying that "Well, her novels received praise, so that proves that her novels are concerned with important moral questions". He makes the case based on the fact that each of her novels raises important moral questions. He is assuming "To raise important moral questions, a novelist's work must concern itself with important moral questions".

   3%
4. D

   Out Of Scope2% picked this

   The vividness of Colette's language was not itself the result of

   The vivid language she's been praised for is tangential to the author's argument. He's not addressing what she's praised for; he's addressing what she's criticized for. If we negate this and say that her vivid language was the result of poetic condensation ... so what? How would that hurt the author's argument?

   2%
5. E

   Out of Scope: "of her time"26% picked this

   Colette's purpose in poetically condensing emotional crises in the lives of characters in her novels was to explore some of the important

   This answer is very tempting, because we may have thought "Sure the novels raise important questions, but did Colette actually care about that, or was it just incidental". If we check the language of the conclusion, though, it's about whether or not the novels are concerned with important questions, not about whether the novelist was. So even if Colette's purpose wasn't to concern herself with important moral questions, it may still be true that her novels nonetheless do that. Perhaps an easier way to get ourselves out of picking this answer is to notice the needlessly specific "moral questions of her time". She doesn't need to be concerned with contemporary moral questions to be concerned with moral questions. An author can be concerned with timeless moral questions: "what is a life for?" / "how should we treat other people". A moral question "of our time" would be more like "Is it ethical to use the stem cells from an unborn embryo for scientific research purposes?"

   26%