#13 - The Frauenkirche in Dresden, a historic church

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi quan-tang,

The stimulus uses original form to describe the goals of the restoration---to return it to it's original form. The 18th-century organ was originally for the church, and thus returning it to its original form would involve restoring the organ as well. There is nothing in the stimulus to suggest that the restoration is meant to restore the church to its appearance just prior to World War II. The fact that the organ had been changed from the original until World War II does not explain why they wouldn't be returning to the original style of the organ in their restoration efforts.

However, the purpose of the reconstruction would provide an explanation. If the church is to serve as a site for worship, it would be against that goal to install an organ that cannot play music currently used in worship. The goals of the restoration project are at odds with the attempts to restore it to its original form, and thus those goals provide an explanation for why the foundation varied the organ in this case.

Hope that helps!

[mtdaniel]

I also chose (D) initially because I read the stimulus wrong in two ways which led me to think the primary purpose of the reconstruction was to restore the church to its original form, rather than to serve as a place of worship and cultural activities:

(1) I misread "reconstruction" as "restoration". This made me focus on the idea of "restoring" an existing church to an original state. However, the stimulus says the church was *destroyed* (i.e. ceased to exist as a physical structure), not just *damaged* and able to be restored. So the reconstruction is more having the church back in the city, as if WWII and the destruction never happened, rather than getting back to the state of the original construction.

(2) The stimulus talks about the foundation taking "extraordinary care to return the church to its original form". The use of the term "extraordinary care" made me put more emphasis on the return to original form instead of serving as a place of worship and cultural events, which is the stated purpose of the reconstruction.

I think this was a tough question. I especially got confused by the first two sentences where it first says the church was destroyed, then later says it's being returned to its original form. But if it was destroyed, there's nothing to return to form or restore, you have to completely rebuild a new church in the same form.

[Luke Haqq]

Hi mtdaniel!

It's good that you are looking back on questions that you selected the incorrect answer for, in order to understand what you might have done wrong. I'd encourage you to keep that practice up--merely taking numerous practice tests, for example, might not drastically raise one's score, whereas taking practice tests and then reviewing them to understand why you selected the wrong answer, understanding why it was wrong, and understanding why the right one was correct will almost undoubtedly help you in avoiding similar mistakes in the future.

On this question, you are right that it says "reconstructed" as opposed to "restored." However, I'm not sure that "destroyed" in this context must necessarily mean "ceased to exist as a physical structure" in such a way that it could not be restored. The stimulus just seems to indicate that bombs fell in its proximity, leaving it in rubble. Perhaps one could still make out an outline of the shape of the foundation, or perhaps parts of walls here and there were still standing.

It's not essential to know these things in the end because we're told in the next sentence that an organization is "return[ing] the church to its original form." So whether "destroyed" is compatible with some partial walls still standing, or must mean absolutely 100% of every brick had fallen apart doesn't matter because the stimulus tells us that an organization is seeking to return it to its original form, or restoring it.

On resolve the paradox questions, it's important to select an answer choice that addresses both aspects of the paradox. In this question, I don't see specific language stating that returning the church to its original form is its only or primary purpose. That is one purpose. But the stimulus explicitly states another: it "has been reconstructed to serve as a place for church services and cultural events." Answer choice (A) captures why it is being reconstructed but with a modern organ, even though there was money to rebuild it like the original--returning it to the original would be antithetical to one of the purposes of the reconstruction.

By contrast, answer choice (D) doesn't provide reasons for the modern organ. Even if the organ in the church had been modified several times before it was destroyed in WWII, one would still be left wondering why this modified organ as it existed before it was destroyed was not rebuilt but rather a modern organ was built in its place.