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#36331
Complete Question Explanation
(See the complete passage discussion here: lsat/viewtopic.php?t=14461)

The correct answer choice is (D)

For this question, we need to consider which one of the following five questions can be answered
using the information provided in the passage. Often the most efficient approach to this sort of
question is to review the choices and quickly eliminate any Losers that cannot be answered using the
information in the passage. Then examine the remaining Contenders more closely.

Answer choice (A): Just because the domestic novels focused primarily on women does not mean
that women were also the only writers of such novels. Since the passage does not indicate whether
any men wrote domestic novels in the 1850s, this is not a question that we can answer using the
information given.

Answer choice (B): Even though the high-cultural aesthetic became the dominant conception
of fiction later in the nineteenth century (lines 42-43), it is entirely plausible that some widely
read domestic novels were still written after the 1860s. Since the author limited the scope of her
discussion to the domestic novels of the 1850s, we cannot answer this question using the information
provided.

Answer choice (C): This is a classic Shell Game answer. The rural youth’s migration to the cities is
cited as a possible explanation of the differences between Jewett’s fiction and the domestic novels of
the 1850s (line 23). However, it is unclear how (or whether) such migration affected the development
of domestic fiction in the 1850s.

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice. Because of her new conception of literary
art as an autonomous sphere with value in and of itself, Jewett created a secular world that was
devoid of didactic (or instructive) aims. The first two paragraphs provide sufficient information to
help answer this question.

Answer choice (E): Hopefully you were able to eliminate this answer choice quickly, since
the passage does not specify the region of the United States with which Jewett’s writings were
concerned.

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