Q3

[uhdang]

Arguing between D and E, I thought "formal" in E meant social representation / reformation, and I went for it, since line 41 says, "the reformation of society was of no interest to them as artists." It sounded like a paraphrase of given line.

I can see that "efforts to create a far more 'real' reality" supports D.

This might not be directly related to answer finding process, but what does "formal" mean here?

[ohthatpatrick]

Formal aspects, I think, refers to stuff about painting that is NOT the semantic content (the meaning / idea / thing being represented).

Formal aspects would be stuff like color, shadow, size of canvas, type of brush, type of paint, etc.

In lines 34-41, we learn that P and B were "primarily concerned with problems of representation and form", so (E) is really contradicted.

They were PRIMARILY interested in the formal aspects of their work.

=== quick explanation for posterity ===

"According to the passage" usually indicates an Identify Information task. Use the keywords to find the 'proof window' of text, and then stay true to it.

Picasso and Braque's statements are nicely contained in lines 37-41 (although 41-42 seems to also be something we could pin on them).

So let's pick an answer we can support from that proof window.

(A) this is unsupported, but the gist of it is more or less contradicted from 41-42

(B) same as (A).

(C) seems contradicted by the fact that they were PRIMARILY concerned with representation and form.

(D) "transcend visual reality" is a nice synonym swap for "efforts to create a far more 'real' reality than the one that was accessible only to the eye".

(E) just like (C), more or less contradicted.