#23 - Much of today’s literature is inferior: most of our authors are intellectually and

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Must Be True. The correct answer choice is (E).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice.

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[lujainaltawarah]

Hello! Why is E correct as opposed to A? I originally chose E but felt like A was better since the stimulus mentions how much of today's literature is inferior and explains why that inferiority entails. I felt like E may have been too strong in comparison to A in regards to already assuming that the novel is good literature when the stimulus just mentions that it's promising.

thank you!

[Dana D]

Hey Lujainaltawarah,

The stimulus gives us too issues with today's literature:

1. it lacks intricacy
2. it doesn't focus on the significant

We know the author thinks Hypatia's latest novel is complex, so it seems to address the first issue, which is why answer choice (E) is the most strongly supported. We don't, however, know if Hypatia's novel focuses on the significant, and therefore we cannot compare the degree to which Hypatia focuses on this versus other authors, which is why we cannot say that answer choice (A) is correct.

Hope that helps!

[juliet-kamau@outlook.com]

I understand that everything but E is wrong, but how can E make a comparison between a single element of her works if the stimulus doesn't state what her earlier works were like at all?

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Because it compares her recent work to her other work, Juliet. The stimulus tells us that this new work exhibits greater complexity than her earlier works. Since intricacy is listed as a part of good literature, we can conclude that in at least one respect, her newest work has at least one element that of good literature to a greater degree than her prior books.

Hope that helps!

[sophiematta9@gmail.com]

I'm wondering why it is not D; if most of today's literature is inferior, and it is established that Hypatia's latest novel is not inferior, would it not naturally follow that her latest novel is superior to the vast majority of modern novels since they are mostly inferior?

[Jeff Wren]

Hi sophie,

Answer D is very tricky. It is easy to think that "Hypatia's latest novel is clearly better than the majority of today's literature" (my emphasis) based on what is stated in the stimulus, but we don't actually know this.

First, the stimulus begins by describing "much of today's literature" (my emphasis) as inferior. The word "much" does not guarantee "most." It is true that the second half of the sentence discusses "most of our authors" (my emphasis) and how their works lack the qualities that characterize "good literature." However, lacking the qualities that characterize good literature does not necessarily mean that the works are inferior, as this isn't necessarily a binary choice. For example, perhaps most of the works are simply average, neither inferior nor good. Also, and this is really nitpicky, but it is theoretically possible that most of today's literature could be good even if most of today's authors are not good because there could be a minority of super prolific good writers who write far more books than the bad authors.

The other tricky part of this stimulus is the description of Hypatia's latest novel as "promising." While "promising" certainly has a positive connotation, it is not identical to "good." The definition of "promising" that is most relevant to this stimulus would be "showing signs of future success." We know from the stimulus that Hypatia's latest novel has qualities that exceed her earlier works (as captured in Answer E), which is why her works are promising, meaning they are showing improvement. We do not, however, get a direct comparison between Hypatia's latest novel and the majority of today's literature, so Answer D is tempting but incorrect.