preptest 63 section 4 question 9-- Can anyone help me on this?

[rhoneplus]

Hi,

Can anyone explain to me their reasoning about how they approached the correct answer here?

I thought that A (the correct answer) was wrong here because we have no idea why Chopin did not believe in the local colorists' idealization on line 38. Thus, it doesn't have to be because Chopin thought that the local colorists were "misguided" (aka wrong).

On the other hand I thought that B was right because it seemed a little more supported: in lines 32-35, it at least explains why Chopin wrote using local colorists' conventions: because she thought that the sentimental novels she read when she was little were a bit too excessive. In addition, my thought was: why write something that is so emotional in such a detached manner (line 37) unless you wanted to deafen the emotional impact?

Any help would be appreciated!

Best regards

[mandrewsf]

I realize that you asked about this question quite a while ago, but in case you or anyone else is still wondering about this question:

Answer choice A is directly supported by the first sentence of paragraph 4: "Chopin did not share the local colorists' growing nostalgia for the past, however...". Furthermore, the beginning of paragraph 3 tells us that even when Chopin's writing style was influenced by local colorists, her writing did not share the same "idealization of settings and objects formerly associated with 'women's culture'" but rather focused on topics that local colorists did not write about.

As for answer choice B, I eliminated it right away as the local colorists' "tendency to observe character dispassionately" was the primary reason why Chopin adopted their writing method in the first place, so the language in the answer choice casting it in a negative light ("caused their fiction to have little emotional impact") was clearly unsupported by the text.

[rhoneplus]

Thanks anyways mandrewsf!