#12 - Concept Reference, Parallel

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[cathyli1996]

Dear Powerscore Instructor,

For this question I prephrase the answer to be something that 1) only tangentially related to the plot and 2) does not contribute to the story. I chose (A), thinking that if the novel does not provide information necessary for understanding the context or chronology, then it does not really contribute to the story. Is (A) wrong because no mention of something is not the same as not contributing to the story?

Whereas in the correct answer (E), is it because "expressing the protagonist's thought and fantasies about life in general" is more in line with something tangentially related to the plot (though I personally think protagonist's thought is quite central...)

Really appreciates for the help!

[Adam Tyson]

Answer A, cathyli1996, describes something much more akin to the non-musical films of the period as described in the first paragraph. "The world of the story is self sufficient" and "Devices that draw attention to to the film as film...are avoided" sound a lot like "without providing information necessary for understanding." That is, the novel doesn't explain itself, but just tells the story as a series of chronological events. The reader, like the viewer of the film, will either understand or not based solely on what happens, and not on how it is framed or explained.

Answer E is best because the story in that hypothetical novel is about the events of a single day. What could the protagonist's thoughts and feelings, presented in a stylistically elaborate way, have to do with those events? They are tangential at best, a distraction, which, while they might shed some light on the character's motives or choices, are not otherwise germane to the chronological series of events unfolding. Think of those as the musical interludes, and your analogy is complete. Winner!

[heartofsunshine]

Hi there,

I chose A because I was trying to describe the novels without considering the musicals. I eliminated B and C and then I saw D and E as pretty similar. One about sharing thoughts and feelings (E) and one about flashbacks to the past (D). Also because of the similar nature of E and D, both a distraction, I thought A was right. I see now that I needed to select something for the musical though so I see why E is right. Can you help me see why D would also be wrong? If it's flashing back to the past, wouldn't this also be a distraction from the story?

Thanks!

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi heartofsunshine,

For parallel reasoning questions in reading comp, I like to think through what the key elements of passage that I'll need to parallel. In this case, I noted that the interruptions were only "tangentially" related to plot, does not advance the narrative, and is stylistic.

In answer choice (D), we have interruptions, but they are related to the plot. They are stylistic, but they are noted to be "relevant" to the plot. Flashbacks can be relevant to the plot. Think about TV shows like Lost. Almost all of the story is told through flashbacks. Since the answer choice here is specific that the flashbacks are relevant, we don't want to consider them tangential. That doesn't fit what we had in our passage, so we want to eliminate it.

Answer choice (E) on the other hand, is talking about interruptions that are not related to the plot. They are related to life in general, but not the central story. The answer choice also specifies that the interruptions are stylistic, which matches our passage as well.

Hope that helps!
Rachael

[jm123]

I was between answer choices A and E and ended up going with A. Upon reviewing A, the wording that threw me off is "without providing information necessary for understanding the context or chronology of the events." Is this wording referring to the particular sequence of events as opposed to the overall story? If so, I think this is why I missed it, this answer choice would be a loser because we want to parallel something that relates to the overall story, not to particular events.

With answer choice E, it says "expressing the protagonist’s thoughts and fantasies about life in general." This parallels the musical films because the protagonist's thoughts and fantasies about life, "in general," are irrelevant aka does not contribute to the story in the novel.

Am I viewing these two answer choices correctly? Thank you.

[Adam Tyson]

Your understanding of answer E looks good here, jm123. For answer A, I think a good interpretation is that the novel would leave the reader in the dark about some important information. "Without providing information necessary" means readers will have to fill in the blanks for themselves. The author is making the reader work a little harder to understand what's happening. That has nothing to do with what those musical films do. They aren't about leaving the viewer without necessary information, but about pausing, stopping things that advance the story, in order to go off into highly stylized interludes that contribute little to the story.

Musicals didn't leave us wondering about information that had been left out. They provided something extra that went beyond what we needed.

[mikewazowski]

Hi,

I chose my answer based off 18-21. First, an audience watching a singer, then the singer's face, then a sequence of aerial views of city life. This seems very much like (A) which is a series of events without any context or understanding of chronology. That example of the musical doesn't mention any thoughts or fantasies in general which makes (E) unattractive to me. Where is my reading comprehension going wrong?

Thanks!

[Paul Marsh]

Hi Mike! The sentence in lines 18-21 provides a solid example, but the real explanation here is the first sentence of that paragraph, which tells us that the films "interrupt narrative to present musical performances only tangentially related to the plot." The tangentially related interruptions are the key. (For these kind of RC questions, we generally want to look out for a sentence like that which spells out the big picture details we're looking for.)

Answer Choice A doesn't make any reference to those tangentially related interruptions. Answer Choice E on the other hand does specify such interruptions.

Hope that helps!