GRE Reading Comprehension
Home > GRE Test > GRE Reading Comprehension Questions
Next steps
- Use your browser's back button to return to your test results.
- Do more GRE Reading Comprehension Questions.
Source: CHP
For women feminist literary critic, the subjectivity versus objectivity, or critic-as-artist-or-scientist, debate has special political significance, and her definition will court special risks whichever side of the issue it favors. If she defines feminist criticism as objective and scientific, the definition precludes the critic-as-artist approach and may impede accomplishment of the utilitarian political objectives of those who seek to change the academic establishment. If she defines feminist criticism as creative and intuitive, privileged as art, then her work becomes vulnerable to the prejudices of stereotypic ideas about the ways in which women think, and will be dismissed by much of the academic establishment.
These questions are political in the sense that the debate over them will inevitably be less an exploration of abstract matters in a spirit of disinterested inquiry than an academic power struggle in which the careers and professional fortunes of many women scholars -- only now entering the academic profession in substantial numbers -- will be at stake, and with them the chances for a distinctive contribution to humanistic understanding, a contribution that might be an important influence against sexism in our society.
Which of the following is presented by the author in support of the suggestion that there is stereotypic thinking among members of the academic establishment?
- A A distinctively feminist contribution to humanistic understanding could work against the influence of sexism among members of the academic establishment.
- B Women who define criticism as artistic may be seen by the academic establishment as being incapable of critical thinking.
- C The debate over the role of the literary critic is often seen as a political one.
- D Women scholars are only now entering academia in substantial numbers.
- E The woman who is a critic is forced to construct a theory of literary criticism.