GRE Reading Comprehension

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Source: XDF

Ragtime is a musical form that synthesizes folk melodies and musical techniques into a brief quadrillelike structure, designed to be played一exactly as written 一on the piano. A strong analogy exists between European composers like Ralph Vaughan Williams, Edward Grieg, and Anton Dvorak who combined folk tunes and their own original materials in larger compositions and the pioneer ragtime composers in the United States. Composers like Scott Joplin and James Scott were in a sense collectors or musicologists, collecting dance and folk music in Black communities and consciously shaping it into brief suites or anthologies called piano rags.

Question List: 1

Which of the following is most nearly analogous in source and artistic character to a ragtime composition as described in the passage?

  • A Symphonic music derived from complex jazz motifs
  • B An experimental novel based on well-known cartoon characters
  • C A dramatic production in which actors invent scenes and improvise lines
  • D A ballet whose disciplined choreography is based on folk-dance steps
  • E A painting whose abstract shapes evoke familiar objects in a natural landscape

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