SAT OwlQuestion bank / Text Structure and Purpose
Some literary critics have argued that the novel is in decline because fewer people read long fiction than in the past. Scholar Tomas Reyes finds this argument historically shortsighted. He notes that in the 1850s, critics lamented that cheap serialized novels were corrupting readers who had once preferred poetry and sermons, and that in the 1950s, critics warned that television would make the novel obsolete. Each generation, Reyes observes, has declared the novel to be dying, often in the very decades when new readers were discovering it.
Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?
To argue that television has had little effect on people's reading habits
To present a scholar's view that current claims about the novel's decline repeat a long pattern of similar predictions that proved unreliable
To show that serialized novels of the 1850s were of higher quality than critics believed
To explain why fewer people read long fiction today than in the past
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B
The text presents a current claim and then Reyes's response: critics in the 1850s and the 1950s made similar predictions, often just as the novel was gaining readers. The purpose is to present his view that such claims follow an unreliable pattern, choice B.
Choice D accepts the critics' premise as the text's focus, but the text never explains a decline; it questions the claim of decline.
Got it wrong? On SAT Owl, Owl looks at the answer you chose and explains the exact mistake, then gives you similar questions until it sticks. Get your predicted SAT score free.