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The author of the passage introduces the subject of jazz primarily in order to
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It can be inferred from the passage that, according to Thomas, the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance would probably agree with which of the following statements about the European artistic tradition?
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It can be inferred from the passage that proponents of the Black Arts movement did not view jazz in the same way as the commentators of the Harlem Renaissance primarily because proponents of the Black Arts movement
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This passage is adapted from material published in 1996.
Hip-hop music has emerged as a powerful African American cultural form addressing a broad spectrum of social issues. Yet hip-hop' s breadth is belied by hip-hop criticism, which has focused primarily on controversies about the antisocial content of some of its lyrics. Such discussions have almost preempted more sophisticated critical analysis. For example, little has been written about hip-hop' s relationship to its artistic precursors. Critics might examine parallels between hip-hop and the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s. Both movements produced art expressing the alienation felt by many African Americans. Furthermore, like the Black Arts Movement, hip-hop artists have collided with the profit-oriented nature of institutions of cultural production. Black artists continue to face restrictive conventions that the writers Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes faced in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s: commercial publishers' tendency to favor particular themes, subjects, or treatments for Black artists' work. The Black Arts Movement dealt with this dilemma by seeking outlets for autonomous cultural production, including theater companies and publishing houses. Hip-hop is similarly threatened by mainstream commercialism. As Palmer notes, many commercialized hip-hop lyrics are light and innocuous. Committed hip-hop artists have therefore sought out alternatives to mainstream commercial venues.
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The primary purpose of the passage is to
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The passage suggests which of the following about "committed hip-hop artists" ?
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At first glance, the place of Henry James among Modernist writers remains somewhat problematic. His dozen or more novels and scores of short stories obey the classic rules. Unlike Modernist novels, whose focus on characters' inner lives provoked critics' complaints that "nothing happens," James' s plots move forward at a relentless pace, with denouements occurring where convention has put them, at the end. Their dialogue, if at times high-flown, is naturalistic; their author appears as an all-knowing presence. Despite these literary orthodoxies, though, James' s works, especially his late novels, show something amazingly new and unexpected. His explorations of consciousness shy at no complexity and lend his otherwise conventional novels the focus on interiority that characterizes the Modernist project in fiction.
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The passage suggests that compared to Modernist novels, novels by Henry James tend to
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It can be inferred that the author of the passage would agree with which of the following claims about James' s fiction?(Consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.）
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Typical of Argentine melodrama of the 1930s were the films starring Libertad Lamarque, the genre's biggest box-office attraction. Her most frequent role was that of the tango singer whose romance with a wealthy suitor is blocked by his elitist family. Despite its widespread social acceptance by the 1930s, tango continued to be associated in film melodramas with criminality and vice. As Diana Paladino remarks, in these films, "the tango songstress was doomed from the start." Nevertheless, if melodramatic logic dictated that Lamarque be punished for the transgressive act of singing tango, surely that judgment was not shared by the members of the audience, many of whom were drawn to her early movies precisely because of her fame as a tango singer.
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Which of the following claims about Lamarque can be inferred from the passage?
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According to the author of the passage, which of the following is true about the tango?
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"Flight-Initiation Distance" (FID) is the distance at which birds flee from an approaching human. Birds adjust their FIDs in relation to a range of factors, including body mass, encounter rates with stimuli, and aspects of the stimulus such as starting distance (the distance at which a human approach begins), stimulus type (e.g., vehicle or walker), proximity to refuge, directness and speed of approach. The ability to discriminate between stimuli within species demonstrates that cognition is involved in the specifics of bird escape, and the substantial cognitive ability of at least some birds has recently been highlighted. Accurate judgment of risk, and appropriate mediation of response, is likely to be critical for the survival of many birds that encounter potentially threatening stimuli such as humans in increasing numbers and places. The "cognitive buffer" hypothesis suggests larger-brained birds will be better able to adapt to novel environmental conditions, such as those created by anthropogenic landscape change. In theory, these birds may be able to more accurately judge risk when presented with a stimulus, or be able to learn (habituate or sensitize) to adjust responses appropriately based on their previous experience. If so, one would predict that there would be a negative association between FID and brain size within and across species.
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The primary purpose of the passage is to
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Which of the following statements, if true, would confirm the prediction made in the final sentence of the passage? (Consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.)
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The passage suggests that birds with an invariably long FID are
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Due to the importance they accorded roads, railways, rivers, and bridges, the French Impressionist painters were able to create a new iconography of landscape for the industrial age. Most contemporaries saw nothing in these paintings but trivial subjects and retained only the visual shock of the Impressionists' completely new technique and style. The Impressionist canvases were, however, much more complex than their apparent simplicity indicated: Impressionist landscapes balanced traditional images of France with elements representing industrial progress and thereby introduced modernity into painting. While retaining a part of the heritage they had received from their artistic predecessors, who had painted virgin forests and quaint old mills and farms, the Impressionists did not hesitate to place these traditional motifs next to factories and other signs of modernity in order to give as complete a vision as possible of their land. In their own way they were helping to celebrate the reconstruction of France that followed the Franco-Prussian War.
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Which of the following does the passage imply about the nineteenth-century reaction to French Impressionist landscape paintings?
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The passage suggests which of the following about French Impressionist painters of landscapes?(Consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.)
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In the context in which it appears "retained" most nearly means
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