Q6

[KakaJaja]

I know why E is correct, but I'm a little confused about B.

Is B wrong because we only know that reading Shakespeare does not require much knowledge about his life experience, but we don't know whether Shakespeare's poems are less susceptible to being read as subtle verbal creation?

[ohthatpatrick]

You're exactly right: (B) goes beyond what we know from the text.

For a question like this, it's nice to know that the only sentence they gave us that says anything about Shakespeare is line 20-23.

What do we know from that line? Shakepeare's poems can often be read without wondering what events or circumstances prompted Shakespeare to write it.

(E) is a very tight paraphrase of that, whereas the other four answers go WAY beyond what's mentioned in line 20-23.

(A) we can't compare the variety of responses Byron vs. Shakespeare has received.

(B) we have no idea whether Shakespeare is susceptible to being read as a subtle verbal creation.

(C) this is the closest any other answer comes to what is discussed in 20-23, but that line doesn't give any indication whether Shakespeare wrote from personal events or not.

(D) this line doesn't have anything to do with allowing a reader to perceive his/her own weaknesses.

When we see "According to the author", "according to the passage", "the passage states", etc. ... then our job is really just to find the applicable window of text in the passage and then pick which ever answer choice is the tightest fit.

Hope this helps.