Q5

[john.as.camacho]

Hi anyone,

I initially chose (E) show that Mphahlele makes no distinction among prose, poetry and drama but I'm unsure where in the quote that one can see what Mphahlele values. I assume with the previous line "writing is the transmission of ideas, and important ideas at that" plays a role here.

[ohthatpatrick]

Questions that say
"the author did _____ in order to"
or
"the author mention of _____ serves to"

are asking about WHY the author said something, not about WHAT the author said.

So the correct answer normally connects WHAT was actually said to whatever bigger point is being made in the immediate vicinity. Normally the correct answer is a paraphrase of a broader point being made immediately before or after the line reference in question (otherwise, think about the overall point of that paragraph).

The danger for most students on this question is that they would narrow their focus to WHAT is actually said in line 55-58 instead of answering the actual question, "WHY did the author give us this quote?" The author provides this quote to punctuate the overall message of the final paragraph.

So what big point is being made in the vicinity of lines 55-58?

The last paragraph is saying that Mphahlele wasn't concerned with autobiography vs. fiction. His primary concern is how effectively his writing conveys a social message. He believes that no writing is free of fiction or personal experience. Ultimately what matters most is that the writer has a social message to make and conveys it to the best of his ability.

So the quote we're being asked about is supposed to be some restatement of that idea.

(A) "eloquence" doesn't reinforce any theme of the final paragraph

(B) narrowing this down to "novelists" seems to go against the theme of the final paragraph, which is to say there's not any real distinction between writing novels and autobiography.

(C) this is pretty bland, but "the kind of writing M values" is definitely the topic of the final paragraph. Line 41 begins with what M "shows little interest in" (what he does not value). Line 47 talks about "the writing he cares about". And line 52 has him talking about "the whole point of the exercise of writing".

(D) this is the trap of focusing on keywords INSIDE the line reference, when the question is asking how the line reference connects to the sentences surrounding it. We have no support that M ever wrote poetry, so this is unsupportable.

(E) this is another "fuzzy word blender" type answer, where they just grab words and phrases we have heard and make a new sentence with a meaning we've never heard in the passage. Line 41 roughly says that M makes no distinction between autobiography and fiction. And lines 55-58 say that M thinks that prose, poetry, and drama all share a common goal. But that doesn't mean that M thinks that prose, poetry, and drama are identical. It's certainly possible that he admits that poetry often rhymes, while prose normally doesn't (for instance). Beware extreme words like "makes NO distinction" unless you can prove them in the passage.

Hope this helps.