Lorenzo Tucker

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TopicsPrimary PurposeHumanities

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Passage

Until my present study, African American entertainer Lorenzo Tucker had not been extensively discussed in histories of United States theater and film. Yet during a span of 60 years, from 1926 to 1986, he acted in 20 films and performed hundreds of times on stage as a dancer, vaudeville straight man, singer, on a part of U.S. entertainment history about which, so far, there has been insufficient scholarship.

I gathered much of the background material for my study of Tucker’s life through research in special collections of the New York and Los Angeles public libraries, including microfilmed correspondence, photographs, programs, and newspapers. Also examined—as primary source material for an analysis of Tucker’s acting technique—were the ten still available films in a group of personal, in-depth interviews I conducted with Tucker himself in 1985 and 1986.

There are both advantages and disadvantages in undertaking a biographical study of a living person. The greatest advantage is that the contemporary biographer has access to that person’s oral testimony. Yet this testimony must be approached with caution, since each person recounting his or her version of events for the historical record the duty of the biographer, therefore, to verify as much of the oral narrative as possible.

Information from Tucker has undergone careful scrutiny and has been placed up against the known facts for verification, and for the most part, information that could not be verified was not included in this study. But Tucker’s recollections of his personal life could not always be independently verified, of course, since most therefore, will weave together oral and other evidence to create the career biography of Lorenzo Tucker.

What this question is testing

Primary Purpose

Your task

Pin down exactly what the question asks about the passage — a detail, the author's view, the structure, or the main point — before looking at the choices.

Common trap

Answers that restate a true detail from the passage but don't answer the specific question being asked.

Winning move

Anticipate the answer in your own words from the passage, then find the choice that matches that prediction.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question

The author of the passage is primarily

Answer choices

Out of Scope: criticizing / correcting0% picked this
criticizing and correcting certain political and intellectual traditions with regard
Our author is just describing her study of Tucker: its content, its source material, its fact-checking methodology. She isn't using the introduction of her dissertation to criticize and correct political and intellectual traditions.
0%
Out of Scope: alternate method1% picked this
proposing an alternative method of historical
Our author is describing her study of Tucker: its content, its source material, its fact-checking methodology. She isn't proposing a new method of historical investigation. The closest we get to something like this is the discussion in the 3rd and 4th paragraphs, where she is acknowledging some trepidation people have with one of her methods of historical investigation (i.e. using oral testimony from the subject of the biography). But she didn't invent or propose that method. She's just defending her use of the method, saying that she was cognizant of its pitfalls and put in appropriate safeguards.
1%
Out of Scope10% picked this
summarizing the main points, and assessing the value, of the historical study that will follow this
Out of Scope: main points Too Narrow While the author tells us a lot about the topic that will be explored (in the 1st paragraph), she doesn't summarize any main points of the study. She does somewhat assess the value of the study in the final sentence of the first paragraph. But this answer doesn't cover the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th paragraphs at all, where the author discusses her source materials, acknowledges potential objections to one of those source materials (oral testimony), and then addresses those objections by explaining her methodology.
10%
Out of Scope: previously held view2% picked this
reexaming a previously held historical point of view, identifying its weaknesses, and outlining the correction that will follow
Nothing in this passage holds up a previously held historical point of view and then reexamines it or identifies its weaknesses. The author is just telling us all about her study of Tucker: what it covers, what materials she used, what steps she took to avoid potential errors.
2%
Correct86% picked this
explaining the author's choice of subject matter and methods used in researching
Why this is right
This gives us the boring but true answer: this passage is primarily concerned with describing the author's study of Tucker. What will my study talk about? Why am I choosing to talk about it? (1st paragraph) What methods did I use? (2nd, 3rd, 4th paragraphs)
Skill tested: Primary Purpose · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.
86%

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