#10 - Global Reference, Must Be True

[Adam Tyson]

It's the fact that we cannot find ANY support for answer D that removes it from contention, mkarimi73. There is no evidence in the passage that anything she did with lacquer was not intended for public viewing. For all we know, almost everything she did was put on display in an art gallery somewhere! Even the wall panel we know something about is in the lobby of an apartment, which sounds like a pretty public display. We reject answer D not because we have evidence that it is false, but because we no evidence that it is true.

[morri3mg]

I chose 'B', as the entirety of the third paragraph goes into detail about the panels and furniture that she made. While I wouldn't imagine that "constructed" would be interpreted as "made from scratch," is there any other reason why 'B' is wrong?

[Luke Haqq]

Hi morri3mg!

The "personally constructed" and "most" language in (B) seems problematic. (B) states that "Gray personally constructed most of the interior furnishings that she designed."

When reading this passage, I certainly assumed that Gray was making the art being discussed. However, I was less of this view when the passage turned to talk about Gray as an architect. Indeed, it says at the outset that the eventually designed homes (lines 3-4). Architects don't generally personally construct every aspect of what they design. Since the passage talked about Gray's interests shifting "from smaller objects to the very large" (lines 5-7), it also seemed possible that she may work with others especially on the very large projects.

This seems possible, and there's nothing in the stimulus that directly states that she "personally constructed most" of the interior furnishings she designed. Since this is a must be true question, it's therefore especially noticeable that the stimulus doesn't foreclose the possibility that others helped her construct some and perhaps many of her works. We don't know either way, which is why we can eliminate (B).

[izzy_tingles]

Hello, can I get a further explanation of where in the text "ornamental" is used to describe Gray's later work? Some posts have slightly touched on this but not fully. In this context, is "ornamental" expected to mean "relating to an ornament" or "decorative, ornate?" If it is meant to mean the latter, I don't know where to find textual support for this. Thank you!

[Luke Haqq]

Hi izzy_tingles!

For starters, we're told in the first paragraph that her works include ornaments and other things like furniture (line 4).

For an indication of what constitutes her later work, a good place to look is starting around line 25. That portion of the passage discusses her early work and then what she did later. It suggests that an example of her later work includes "a screen she made for the lobby of an apartment" (line 28), which the author goes on to note "becomes a painting, a piece of furniture, and an architectural element all at once" (lines 33-34).

Answer choice (E) states that "Much of Gray’s later work was functional as well as ornamental." I would think of ornate in the sense of decorative, but perhaps more importantly, in this answer choice it seems to be contrasted with being functional. So something that is ornamental seems to be created not for the purpose of functionality. The mentioned example of her later work seemed both to be functional--inasmuch as it was a piece of furniture, and also ornamental--inasmuch as it was a painting.

[H714W7]

Hi izzy_tingles!

For starters, we're told in the first paragraph that her works include ornaments and other things like furniture (line 4).

For an indication of what constitutes her later work, a good place to look is starting around line 25. That portion of the passage discusses her early work and then what she did later. It suggests that an example of her later work includes "a screen she made for the lobby of an apartment" (line 28), which the author goes on to note "becomes a painting, a piece of furniture, and an architectural element all at once" (lines 33-34).

Answer choice (E) states that "Much of Gray’s later work was functional as well as ornamental." I would think of ornate in the sense of decorative, but perhaps more importantly, in this answer choice it seems to be contrasted with being functional. So something that is ornamental seems to be created not for the purpose of functionality. The mentioned example of her later work seemed both to be functional--inasmuch as it was a piece of furniture, and also ornamental--inasmuch as it was a painting.

Why is line 25 better support than the part of the architectural paragraph that says her lacquer and interior design work prefigure her work as an architect? If both of those prefigure her architectural work, then her architectural work has to be at least a relatively later period, right? I guess it could be the case that what is relatively later is still early and thus not part of her later work. But isn't the screen in line 25 interior design work if it was inside a lobby? I thought that might mean that she made that screen before her architectural work. I got the right answer here but I was basing it on the wrong understanding of later work, apparently, and was also confused by the lack of discussion of ornament (in part because I was looking at the architectural passage). Consequently I am trying to figure out how to avoid misinterpreting this kind of language in the future. Thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

While the exact chronology isn't too important here, we did read at the beginning of the passage that her work evolved over time and that "she became a designer of ornaments, furniture, interiors, and eventually homes." This pretty strongly suggests that the architecture came last in the order.

I think there is a lot of evidence throughout the passage that supports the ornamental nature of her work even in her architecture, although it's implied rather than explicit. Yes, the screen in the second paragraph is part of it, but the fact that all of her work reflected her "artistic sensibilities" tells me she didn't just stop caring about aesthetics when she got more and more focused on function. And the fact that her work in lacquer prefigured her work in architecture suggests that her architectural work also had some elements of "the austere beauty of straight lines and simple forms juxtaposed." It's a cumulative thing, not just one thing at one point in the passage.