MCAT Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills Question 40: Answer and Explanation

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Test Information

Question: 40

2. If a hard-line cultural studies practitioner were to conclude, after researching the text, that white supremacist Asa Earl Carter's novel The Education of Little Tree about the traditional upbringing of a Native American boy was written free of his opinions about non-Caucasian peoples, it would most undermine the author's assertion that:

  • A. cultural studies is not exclusively about literature or even art.
  • B. the oppositional nature of cultural studies, carried to an extreme, denies the sovereignty of individual will.
  • C. analyzing the means of production is one of the important goals of cultural studies.
  • D. cultural studies is politically engaged.

Correct Answer: B

Explanation:

B This is a New Information question.

A: No. The analysis of Carter's book would be consistent with the idea that history and traditional customs are also a part of cultural studies.

B: Yes. Someone who is extremely committed to a cultural studies approach, according to the author, would be unlikely to assert that an artist could create a text in which he or she effectively and consciously omitted all trace or influence of his or her cultural context. According to the passage, an individual author would not be seen by this type of cultural critic as having this kind of autonomy (paragraph 3).

C: No. There is no indication, either way, whether the critic examined questions of the means of production. Thus, the new information neither strengthens nor weakens this claim of the author.

D: No. There is no reason, based on the passage, to believe that political engagement in this case would require a hard-line cultural critic to identify racist themes within the novel itself.

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