#16 - There are two kinds of horror stories: those that

[katapult]

Hello,

I struggled with #16 because I thought I saw multiple valid answers, which couldn't be the case. I initially thought that both A and D could be correct choices, and I wanted to confirm the reason they are wrong.

Is the issue that there could be stories about monstrous beasts and mad scientist that are not horror stories at all, and so picking A or D would implement mistaken reversal? If you could walk through the correct way of thinking about this, it would be really helpful.

Thank you!
Kate

[Francis O'Rourke]

Hi Katapult,

It is definitely possible that there could be stories about monstrous beasts and mad scientist that are not horror stories at all. That is the reason to eliminate choice (A).

We can also apply this to Choice (D): there may be many comedies and romances involving Mad Scientists. Since we don't know anything about these possible comedic or romantic Mad Science stories, we cannot say that most Mad Scientist stories do anything with certainty.

This answer choice also brings in the new idea of anti-scientific views of the author. We know that typically Mad Scientist horror stories express some feelings of inadequacy towards using science alone as a guidance in life, but describing the author of such stories as having anti-scientific views is a reach.

[katapult]

Thank you! This was a very helpful explanation.

[lanereuden]

What is the answer here if not a or d?

[Adam Tyson]

The correct answer to this question is E, lanereuden. It must be true that "Some stories that employ symbolism describe violations of the laws of nature", because horror stories do both. The ones about monsters certainly do - the author told us that the monsters symbolize psychological disturbances. The ones about mad scientists also do, in my opinion, because they "symbolize" the author's feelings of distrust about science as the sole source to guide us. But that may be a stretch of what "symbolize" means - I'm no English major - but that doesn't matter, because we still have the monster stories. And both types describe violations of the laws of nature.

It's enough that just one story both employs symbolism and describes a violation of the laws of nature. A single story about monsters does that, and proves answer E to be true. Remember that "some" just means "anything other than zero." If there's one, there's some!