Their Eyes Watching God

Answer choices

1. A

   Out of Scope: misconception7% picked this

   correct a

   If the author were working to shoot down an Alternate Explanation for why Their Eyes was initially marginalized, en route to supplying us with the real Explanation, then this could work. But the only Alternate Explanation the author shoots down is the 2nd sentence of the 2nd paragraph, in which she says "It wasn't marginalized because it was initially ignored". However, the passage never identifies that view as being held by anyone. We don't have any sense that it was a common misconception that book reviewers ignored Their Eyes when it first came out.

   7%
2. B

   Correct86% picked this

   explain a

   Why this is right

   We were looking for something like Explain Something Puzzling. The puzzling thing the author is trying to explain is how Their Eyes was initially assessed by the literary community as 'not that great', but then was majorly reassessed in years to follow, as it is now a cherished classic. The author asks at the end of the 1st paragraph, "It seems necessary to ask why a work now viewed (re-assessed) as remarkably successful was ever relegated to the margins". The author's explanation is that - initial assessment bad because it wasn't protest fiction - later assessment positive because we developed an Afrocentric feminist framework that was able to "get it"

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

   86%
3. C

   Out of Scope: points of view5% picked this

   reconcile two points of

   This feels mean. I mean explaining how the initial assessment was so different from the reassessment (as our correct answer says) could easily be construed as reconciling two points of view. It feels like a paradox setup: Given that modern point of view is "this novel great", How can it be old point of view was "this novel meh"? I think this down-to-2 between (B) and (C) has to come down to asking yourself which one is less of a stretch. In order to make this answer choice work, I'm massaging it a little bit. My default impression of saying that an author reconciled two points of view would be that the passage was something like, "Republicans want $600 billion of targeted COVID spending, Dems want $2 trillion in relief / stimulus, but I'll show them the middle way." This passage doesn't feel like that. But this passage definitely gives us the sort of discrepancy we resolve / reconcile / explain in Logical Reasoning. Ultimately, I suppose it's just a little bit sloppy of us to call the initial reception of her novel "one point of view". And the current adulation for her work is "a second point of view". If it were critic vs. critic saying "this novel is meh" vs. "this novel is amazing", that would be a more natural fit to say we're reconciling different points of view. But reconciling circumstances from the past with modern circumstances isn't quite reconciling two different points of view.

   5%
4. D

   Out of Scope: conventional approach1% picked this

   criticize a conventional

   There isn't any conventional approach identified in the passage. "Approach" to what? To evaluating Their Eyes? To explaining its initial lack of popularity?

   1%
5. E

   Out of Scope: new discovery2% picked this

   announce a new

   The author isn't indicating anywhere that he has discovered something new about Hurston's book. Maybe this is the first time someone has discovered this record of the past, but we have no textual grounds for assuming that. "The details of the novel's initial reception help answer this question" would be the discovery, and since these details presumably have existed in the historical record this whole time, it's weird to say anyone has discovered them.

   2%