Q23 - Much of today's literature is

[tzyc]

While I understand (E) is correct...I wonder why (D) is incrrect.
The stimulus says "Much of today's litereture is inferior..." and "Hypatia's latest novel is promising" so I thought it may be true it is better than majority of today's litereture.
Or are "much of" and "majority of" different so it does not follow?

Thank you

*just corrected some typos..

[tommywallach]

Hey Tz,

Let's take the whole thing, shall we?

This is an inference question, so we start by looking at the facts that we know for sure.

1) Most authors are intellectually and emotionally inexperienced.
2) Their works lack intricacy and the focus on the significant that characterize good literature.
3) Hypatia's new novel shows maturity, complexity, and grace that far exceeds her earlier works.

(A) is attempting to play a subtle trick. The only thing we known about Hypatia's novel is that it's way better than her old ones. But her old ones could have been absolutely terrible! If so, then just because the new one is much better than the old ones does not make it better than "much of today's literature" (which we've been told is quite bad).

(B) mentions grace, which is never discussed in relation to today's literature.

(C) is wrong for the same reason as (A).

(D) is wrong for the same reason as (A) and (C).

(E) is CORRECT because it is merely a restatement of the last sentence (joined up with our knowledge that maturity and complexity are hallmarks of good literature).

The correct answer on an inference question is often this boring. : )

-t

[seychelles1718]

I picked D because I thought the "however" in the stimulus ("However, Hypatia's latest novel is promising;") meant Hypatia's latest novel does not fall into those inferior books that lack intricacy and the focus on the significant, which are the characteristics of good literature. As soon as I saw the "however" in the beginning of the sentence, I thought the author is saying Hypatia's latest novel is good literature, or at least better than much of today's literature. That's why I picked D.... Can anyone correct my reasoning please?

Thanks!!!

[ohthatpatrick]

In terms of this actual problem, your reasoning is simply going astray by swapping "much" and "most" as though they're interchangeable.

If I say "much of what gets said on late night talk shows is inappropriate for kids", that doesn't mean the same thing as "MOST of what gets said ...".

MOST makes a very precise quantified claim: more than 50%

MUCH doesn't make any precise quantified claim. It's gotta be more than a little, but it doesn't need to be greater than 50%.

MOST = typically, tends to, generally, usually (these indicate more than 50%)

MUCH = a significant amount/number, commonly, often, frequently (these don't)

Another problem is that you can't automatically assume from a "but / yet / however" that the following claim contradicts or uses opposite ideas than the previous claim.

I can say, "A lot of people want to go to Harvard for its law school. But it's business school is at least as impressive!"

Those two claims barely have a contrast. The but/yet/however is just countering the emphasis of the first sentence, not the content itself.

In terms of your reasoning for ANY Inference question, make sure you realize it's way easier to support a weak, limited claim than it is to support a broad expansive one.

To support (E), we need to only know ONE quality of Hypatia's latest novel that is better than her earlier ones (and that is involved in great literature).

To support (D), we need to know about more than half of ALL modern literature, and then we need to say that the subjective quality of Hypatia's novel is CLEARLY BETTER than them. That's a much more sweeping claim.

Hope this helps.

[seychelles1718]

Your explanation is really helpful. Thanks so much!!!