Langston Hughes' Folk Poetry

Answer choices

1. A

   Too Strong: only4% picked this

   indicate that modes of expression acceptable in the context of slavery in the South were acceptable only to a small number of White writers

   The passage doesn't provide any support for the extreme claim that "only a small number of White writers in the north found slavery-related modes of expression acceptable". Trap answers love to bait us into illicitly thinking, "Since they only mentioned northern White writers liking these slavery songs, I guess we can say that only northern White writers liked these slavery songs".

   4%
2. B

   Correct74% picked this

   contrast White writers’ earlier appreciation of these songs with the growing tendency after the Civil War to regard Europeanized versions of

   Why this is right

   This answer is correct because it doesn't say anything wrong. However, for some of us, it's still not really clear why the author wants to make any contrast between White writers' earlier appreciation of the songs and the eventual process of forcing the songs to be Europeanized. Including this detail about the White writers positive reaction to the un-Europeanized sorrow songs seems to mainly make the reader think, "Darn -- society didn't need to Europeanize those slave songs. White people would have liked them anyway, just like these writers did." That helps put the reader in the same indignant mindset as the author, for that final sentence of the paragraph, which is meant to be read in sneering sarcasm.

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

   74%
3. C

   Too Strong: required / unrelated18% picked this

   show that the requirement that such songs be Europeanized was internal to the African American tradition and was unrelated to the literary

   This answer is pretty tempting, because you could potentially read this paragraph to be saying that African Americans devised their own literary tradition and it had two rules: 1. must promote racial acceptance 2. in order to promote racial acceptance, any sorrow song or slave spiritual is required to be Europeanized So when the author presents the northern White writers who have no problem enjoying the earlier, pre-Europeanized sorrow songs sung by slaves, it suggests that "the sorrow songs didn't need to be Europeanized. White people would have liked them anyway." But according to this answer, the author is saying, "The idea, within the African American literature tradition, that Black art would only serve its goal of promoting racial acceptance and integration by being Europeanized was something that came entirely from within the African American hive-mind and had nothing to do with the literary standards or attitudes of White writers". That's just offends common sense too much to be the actual point that this writer was trying to make. In the decades following the Civil War, when Black Americans went from being slaves to "equal citizens", they were still at huge power disadvantages and had to be incredibly accommodating to White people. Thus, the pressure to Europeanize black art in order to help it serve the function of promoting "acceptance and integration" surely was related to White culture.

   18%
4. D

   Out of Scope: imaginative3% picked this

   demonstrate that such songs in their non-Europeanized form were more imaginative than Europeanized versions of

   The concept of how imaginative any of these songs were is completely out of scope, so we couldn't compare any two groups of songs in that way.

   3%
5. E

   Wrong Purpose / Detail-Bait2% picked this

   suggest that White writers benefited more from exposure to African American art forms than Black writers did from

   This is the classic trap answer on Local Purpose that tries to use wording from the question stem itself. The author was never suggesting that these White writers benefited from hearing the sorrow songs, just that they responded favorably.

   2%