Question: In line 18 the author mentions "a common reservoir of experience" Which answer choice describes what the author intended in his use of that phrase?
Prephrase: Okay, whenever there is a line reference I want to read a little bit before the line they reference and a little bit afterwards so that I can be sure I am placing the line reference into the context of the broader argument. Lines 14 - 20 talk about how blues and spirituals share a common aspect, and then goes on to talk about how this shared aspect may very well arise from "a common reservoir of experience" that undergird African American culture.
What this is basically saying is that the aspect described in the first paragraph that the blues and spirituals have in common is derived from the fact that they have a shared experiences rising from African American culture. So I am looking for something that talks about shared cultural roots/shared experience which is what the "common reservoir of experience" is referring to.
(A) "differing cultures" This is the opposite of what we need. We are talking about people that have shared cultural roots not different cultural roots.
(B) "all musical forms" This is too broad. We are only talking about blues and spirituals. Get rid of it.
(C) This is what we want. The shared aspects of blues & spirituals arise from a similar set of experiences or "common reservoir of experience" that contributed to the development of both blues & spirituals.
(D) Line 21-25 says they "do not sharply differentiate reality.." this answer is saying that they do. It is the opposite of what we need, and is also talking about a separate part of the passage that does not refer to a "common reservoir of experience"
(E) The experience does not arise from the folk community, but from African American and West African folk tradition. It also does not necessarily belong to the "community at large", but manifests itself in blues & spirituals at least in the scope of this passage.