Exam 4: Critical Analysis & Reasoning Skills

Passage People sometimes dance for joy, or report that they are so happy that they could dance for joy.  However, one might wonder why this is so.  What is it about happiness that would lead someone to dance?  What exactly is dancing, when one ponders this activity that might otherwise be taken for granted?  Is it only a human practice, or is dancing something in which other animals also engage?Indeed, some animals do seem to dance, although their reasons for doing so are goal-based.  For instance, bees dance to provide information to other colony members, using complicated movements to describe the location and quality of a food source.  This behavior is not emotive; it would seem odd, if not unscientific, to ascribe an emotive character to such displays.  Nevertheless, these displays are communicative, as are emotive human behaviors.Might this similarity bespeak a common evolutionary basis for the dance of humans and other animals?  Perhaps, although there are differences which cast doubt on that hypothesis.  A bee's dance is its main method of communication, whereas most human communication is vocal.  Even with non-vocal communication such as sign language, the types of bodily movements are qualitatively different than those used in dance, as dance movements signify at most a general feeling or impression rather than corresponding to specific words or ideas.  If the bee's dance functions like human sign language (albeit in a much less sophisticated form), it is questionable whether it is an appropriate analogue to human dance at all; the term "dance" would be simply a weak metaphor.  If the bee's dance is a type of language, then it is not the same sort of thing as human dance.Still, there are other types of animal behaviors that might more aptly be called dances.  Many animals engage in courtship displays of varying complexity, in which carefully choreographed movements are designed to win the favor of a potential mate.  Historically, a connection between human dance and courtship has also been assumed, and often cautioned against.  For instance, in the 1950s Elvis was denounced by parents as a corrupting influence upon the young women who swooned over him, and some of his dance moves were censored.  People often voice similar concerns with regard to the behavior of crowds in nightclubs and explicit lyrics in popular music.  Many believe that such an outcry may also be heard in the future, as the struggle of parental restraint against youthful vigor continues.It should not be thought, however, that all amorous dancing is subject to condemnation.  Weddings include dance as a matter of custom, suggesting a long-standing endorsement within socially approved couplings.  Through social tradition or natural instinct, dance seems linked with romance in the human mind.  Nevertheless, such a connection is clearly not the whole story.  One of the most fundamental uses of dance is the physical expression of music-a language not of words, but emotion.If music expresses emotion and dance expresses music, then, do we dance not only "for joy" but for all emotions?  Seemingly not, but why?  Certainly music itself conveys a wide spectrum of feelings.  Although we do not dance "for sadness" or "for anger," we do droop our bodies or clench our fists, and perhaps more subtle emotions produce other physical markers.  Still, happiness too can be seen in a smile, and to actually dance for joy is comparatively rare.  Is dance then truly an entity unto itself?  Or, is it merely one instance of a wider class of physical behaviors? -Which of the following best characterizes the author's attitude toward the fact that Elvis' dance movements were denounced in the 1950s?

Passage Until the 1970s, many states mandated that women assume their husbands' surnames upon marriage.  Today, women are no longer bound by this constraint, and some, like journalist Ellen Goodman, have argued that future generations will view the tradition of married women changing their names as a kind of madness.  That tradition remains strongly ingrained in society, however, and the freedom to reject it comes with social costs.Law professor Elizabeth Emens notes that although cases such as Kruzel v Podell and Dunn v Palermo established in 1975 that a married woman may legally decline to become "Mrs. His Name" (a term used by psychologist Jean M. Twenge), it is still customary for children's surnames to be conferred patrilinearly.  Hence, a prospective bride faces a dilemma of symbolic identity; she may either retain her nominal connection to her parents and past self or create a nominal connection to her husband and future children.  Meanwhile, Emens continues, "her husband has the same name as his parents and his child and thus continuity across all three generations of his family."  Alternatively, a woman might attempt to bridge both worlds through hyphenation, by which "she alone bears the hassle of all the computer forms that apparently can't accommodate such a name, and the people who can't seem to remember it, and the people who think she's constantly trying to make a point about her independence."Other disadvantages are associated with societally atypical naming choices.  These difficulties range from the mild, like eliciting confusion when introducing oneself, to the more egregious, such as a woman whose new neighbors would not believe she and her husband were truly married.  Men also experience social backlash if they choose to adopt or incorporate their wives' names, such as movie reviewer Sam Van Hallgren, who acquired the "Van" from Carrie Van Deest.  Those cases are rare, however; thus, it is women who primarily endure these kinds of burdens.Nevertheless, there are some who see the issue differently.  In a 1996 Good Housekeeping article, Peggy Noonan advocates for the value of name changing as reflecting the couple's commitment to marriage.  In particular, she writes that the typical "bride in her 20s grew up in the Age of Divorce" and that "[t]his bride and her husband…may have fewer misconceptions than their parents about how important freedom and self-actualization are.  They may think other things are more important."  Noonan goes on to suggest that "for these brides, taking their husbands' names is a declaration not only of intention, but of faith…faith in yourself and your spouse."  Noonan ends her article by applauding the trend of more couples choosing to share a married surname.Emens criticizes this stance.  As she argues, equating commitment to marriage with a woman's willingness to change her name makes sense "only when there is no realistic possibility of him or both changing" to create a shared surname.  Legal scholar Kelly Snyder faults an argument from Laura Dawn Lewis on similar grounds, observing: "It is unclear why these [reasons] should explain a woman's choice to change her name, but not a man's."  Like Emens, Snyder stresses the importance of name to a person's sense of self as well as the legal inequities surrounding traditional marital naming.  In her view, the best way to promote a woman's freedom to make a genuine choice about her name is to facilitate men's ability to change names when marrying.  If men no longer face arduous legal and social challenges to changing their own names, then the idea of a woman doing so will no longer be seen as the natural default position. -Some social theorists argue that because there are problems with any approach to marital naming, maintaining the traditional practice is the most beneficial course of action.  Does passage information support this claim?

Passage The traditional tea ceremony evolved from multiple strands of Japanese culture.  Variously referred to as "chanoyu," "sado," or "chado," meaning "the way of tea," the ceremony is a highly codified and choreographed performance in which tea-typically a ground green variety known as "matcha"-is prepared and presented to guests by a host.  The tea ceremony is practiced to promote the harmony of nature and humanity as well as to discipline the mind and calm the heart of those who seek enlightenment.During the ninth century, a Buddhist monk named Eichu brought green tea to Japan from China, where it had already been cultivated for more than 1,000 years and used by monks to facilitate meditation.  Earlier in the century, the Chinese master Lu Yu had composed a treatise on the cultivation and preparation of tea called Cha Jing, or The Classic of Tea.  This treatise was heavily influenced by Buddhist ideas, which then impacted the development of the Japanese tea ceremony.  Toward the end of the twelfth century, another Japanese monk, Myoan Eisai, traveled to China to study philosophy and religion, returning with the seeds of green tea plants.  Eisai went on to build the first Zen Buddhist temple in his native land and was the first of his nation to cultivate tea purely for religious purposes.A tea culture, or "teaism," in Japan was initially popular with the ruling class, and the samurai adopted it as a status symbol.  Indeed, the tea ceremony was in its origins closely entwined with the political elite of the country; by the fifteenth century, however, it had begun to spread to all classes.  Murata Shuko, known as "the father of the tea ceremony," had been largely responsible for moving the tea ceremony away from the political to become more "transformative" or spiritual in nature.  For instance, he greatly enhanced the simplicity of its presentation, making tea ceremonies less formal and more intimate.  Gatherings now took place in smaller tearooms or secluded teahouses rather than luxurious salons.It was the famous tea master Sen no Rikyu who later elevated the tea ceremony to a virtual art form and codified its performance.  This meant that every action and gesture on the part of the preparer-using the kettle, gazing at the teacup, measuring the tea powder into a cup-constituted a procedure to be performed in a prescribed manner.  Even the actions of the guests evolved to become scripted in a precise ritual.  Rikyu's teachings fostered the development of the way of tea based on four cardinal principles-harmony, respect, purity, and tranquility-which were meant to be incorporated into the daily life of the tea practitioner.Chiefly through the efforts of Shuko and Rikyu, the tea ceremony took on a distinctive artistic character and became known as wabi-cha.  The term "wabi," or often "wabi-sabi," refers to the quintessential Japanese aesthetic founded upon the three Buddhist marks of existence: impermanence, suffering, and emptiness.  Unlike the standard concept of beauty in the West that favors symmetry, proportion, and static perfection, wabi-sabi embraces the imperfect and celebrates the transient.  It exalts the rustic and the humble as exemplified by the pottery used in the tea ceremony, which is typically crude, ordinary looking, and even asymmetrical.  Moreover, it is thought that a chip or crack, and even the general wear and tear of repeated use, renders such objects more interesting and, hence, more aesthetically pleasing.  Outdoors, such beauty is found in the fleeting color of autumn leaves and the patina that forms on roof tiles after exposure to the elements.  The simplicity, humility, and naturalism epitomized by wabi-sabi thus became the hallmarks of the way of tea. -Which of the following passage statements would most suggest that the passage is one part of a longer work?

Passage The name "Sun Tzu" is readily recognized by scholars and non-scholars alike; as the author of The Art of War, he is identifiable even to those who have never studied Chinese history or military strategy.  Much less familiar to the layman is his descendant Sun Bin, who one and a half centuries later (circa 350 BCE) extended the discussion of battlefield tactics with his own insights.  Although some deem Sun Bin's thinking to lack the philosophical depth displayed by his predecessor, the two strategists in fact bear many similarities, and we should not be overhasty in our evaluation of Sun Bin's contribution.An instructive example can be found in a historical record of his advice to another commander concerning a horse race: Sun Bin then said to Tian Ji, "You just go ahead and make a large wager; I will see to it that you win."…Just as the contest was to begin, Sun Bin counseled Tian Ji, "Pit your third-best team against their finest, your finest against their second-best, and your second best against their third."  When all three horse races were finished, though Tian Ji had lost the first race, his horses prevailed in the next two, in the end winning a thousand pieces of the king's gold.It would be easy to dismiss this episode as a demonstration merely of cunning or desire for personal gain.  However, Sun Bin's tactic essentially aligns with Sun Tzu's famous maxim: "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles."  Nothing had changed about the horses, but Sun Bin arranged their deployment in a way that ensured an overall victory.  Hence, the story is not out of place in a context of military tactics because it illustrates the adaptation of circumstance to one's advantage.Similarly, while The Art of War remains of interest to the modern military mind, its study is even more often applied to non-martial contexts, such as commerce, politics, or simply how to live.  In one chapter, Sun Tzu gives the instruction to "throw your soldiers into positions whence there is no escape, and they will prefer death to flight.  If they will face death, there is nothing they may not achieve."  The military application is obvious, but the underlying idea extends much further: when one cannot give up, there is no choice but to strive for victory with full abandon.  The question then becomes whether one can play both general and soldier, throwing oneself into the inescapable position that must be confronted.Sun Bin refers to the success or failure of an army when saying: "If you take a road that goes nowhere, even Heaven and earth cannot make you prosper; if you take the right road, even Heaven and earth cannot waylay you."  Nevertheless, his words apply far beyond a military perspective.  By situating warfare within "the pattern of the heavens and the earth," Sun Bin conceives it as a microcosm of a larger and more abstract natural harmony.  To act in accordance with this harmony is to secure victory; to fail to do so is to ensure defeat.  Consequently, success in battle is achieved in the same way as success in any endeavor; as with the horse race, one must adapt to the natural propensities of a situation.  Ultimately, Sun Bin provides a compelling picture of battlefield tactics and strategy.  As with Sun Tzu's more famous insights, however, the true depth and value of Sun Bin's thinking lie in its broader scope and application. -Which of the following individuals would constitute the best example of someone playing "both general and soldier," as described in the passage?

Passage In 1482, a thirty-year-old Leonardo da Vinci left his art studio in Florence and traveled to Milan to seek employment at the court of Duke Ludovico Sforza.  A drafted letter of application to the duke detailed Leonardo's many useful skills, the majority of which concerned military developments such as "methods for destroying any fortress" and making "unassailable armored chariots."  Peacetime talents such as "guiding water from one place to another" or producing "sculpture in marble, bronze and clay" were mentioned only at the end of the letter.  Nevertheless, one of the most intriguing items is the entry stating, "I have designed extremely light and strong bridges, adapted to be easily carried": in other words, portable bridges.Modern scholars question whether most of the devices mentioned in Leonardo's letter could really have been constructed.  For instance, Krull describes the fact that Leonardo never sent the letter as "a good thing, as it was mostly bluff."  Isaacson, though a bit more charitable, similarly declares that Leonardo's "boasts were aspirational."  Regarding the bridge, however, there is no doubt that the design is workable.According to at least one account, Leonardo really did make such a bridge for Sforza.  More significantly, examples of the bridge have been built and used in contemporary times.  A sketch in one of Leonardo's notebooks illustrates the bridge's construction, which includes different sets of wooden beams cut to specific lengths.  Requiring no nails, ropes, or other fasteners, nor any tools, the bridge can be assembled by a mere handful of people, and even some children could potentially build a small version or model.When the bridge is constructed correctly, each component helps to hold all the other components in place.  The original sketch calls for the beams to be notched so that the pieces of the bridge lock together.  However, in some cases this feature can be omitted, provided the wood is sufficiently rough.  This version of the bridge then stands and bears weight due to friction, gravity, and the physical integrity of the pieces.  In this way, the structure depends entirely on the interplay of physical forces upon its parts.The design is modular and repeatable, meaning that a longer bridge can be made by simply adding another section, with the supports interlocked accordingly.  Given enough materials, time, and manpower, such a bridge could in principle be made to quite a great length.  However, in longer bridges the notches would in fact be needed, because some of the beams would be at steeper angles.Despite the relative ease of constructing the bridge, there is one challenge: building it requires access to both sides of the region to be crossed, as well as the area in between.  Such a consideration might seem obvious in building any bridge, but it can still prove problematic.  If a bridge is meant to help cross a body of water, not all members of the group attempting to cross will receive its benefit, as some would have to stand in the water during the bridge's construction.  Of course, this assumes that it is safe to enter the water in the first place.  Crossing a chasm or a deep pit would pose even greater difficulties, as the bridge's prospective builders would, like the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes, lack a place to stand.  Leonardo may have confronted that problem as well and considered how to make a bridge that was not only portable and freestanding, but constructible in sequence from one end to the other.  Although no evidence exists of such a design in the known pages of his notebooks, many pages have been lost to history and might one day be rediscovered. -Which of the following changes to Leonardo's design would most likely prevent the production of a stable bridge?

Passage At the forefront of the modernist poetry movement were T. S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, and others, such as Ezra Pound, whose injunction, "Make it new!" characterized their artistic approach.  Hindered by the same internal conflict plaguing many intellectuals within the cultural upheavals of the time, these poets felt, on one level, that old linguistic certainties had evaporated and new forms must be embraced.  Yet many of them, particularly the later modernist poets, maintained a sentimental attachment to all that had been lost from the cultural certitude of earlier eras, their despondency reflected in much of their work.  At the periphery of the movement were E. E. Cummings and Robert Frost, who were named among modernist poets largely for the chronological classification of their poetry and not necessarily for their style or means of artistic production.A self-titled "poet" and "painter," Cummings was beyond his time in his efforts to innovate.  He would become well known for his erratic applications of punctuation and syntax, and, later, for his visual configurations of words.  Much of Cummings' writing also used idiosyncratic similes and metaphors.  This style, which later evolved to include symbolism and allegory, caused even some of the most progressive modernists to dismiss his work as eccentric, self-indulgent, and lacking depth.  However, as a quintessential dissenter, Cummings remained unaffected by the reactions of his contemporaries and focused more on creating a graphic effect with words.To Cummings, the artist was not one who discerns or describes, but one who feels.  He often contrasted the "doing" of others-scientists in particular-to the "being" of the artist.  Compared to what he defined as the "nonartist," Cummings held that the artist must be original, self-reliant, and free to live according to his or her own truth.  For Cummings, this meant disentanglement from any shackles of societal standards, ranging from the man-made notions of reality and reason to traditional literary conventions.Contrarily, Frost believed that a true poet could-and should-achieve poetic excellence without resorting to what he described as the "new ways of being new."  Consequently, his poetry was composed of ordinary sounds that derived from conventional language.  Although many contemporary critics dismissed his work as overly simplistic, or "too near the level of talk," Frost remained unperturbed by such views, holding that poetry sprang from the natural intonations of a person's voice and should remain true to traditional forms.Frost claimed that "a poem begins with delight, it inclines to the impulse, it assumes direction with the first line laid down."  This conception of a poem led Frost to elucidate that, behind the scenes, the poet must always approach writing intimately and organically, allowing the words to originate seamlessly from "a lump in the throat, a homesickness, a loneliness."  Provoking both poet and reader to recollect an oft-distant truth lingering in some obscure region of the brain, this practice culminates in wisdom that may be profound or just a momentary reprieve from the world.Uncompromising and not always popular, Frost and Cummings nevertheless mingled with the literary elite and developed long-term acquaintances with Ezra Pound, who especially championed Frost's literary career.  Each shared with other modernist poets an opposition to the scientific rationalism and commercialist vulgarity that had infiltrated Western culture after the Industrial Revolution.  Yet both poets also continued to exhibit a commitment to the role of nonconformist and favored aspects of the Romantic poetry movement-namely, the significance of the individual's experience and the rejection of societal scrutiny-over the tormenting self-doubt that had beset their peers.  Thus, even in an age defined by its pure and absolute originality, Frost and Cummings occupied unique positions within the modernist poetry movement. -The passage implies that bioethicists would be likely to oppose which of the following?

Passage Certain schools of thought that arose in the mid- to late 20th century and have since been labeled "poststructuralist" are well known for their propensity to "problematize," "destabilize," or "radicalize" the concepts of previous thinkers.  For example, the controversial French poststructuralist and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan sought to reenvision the concept, first introduced by Freud in the early 1900s, of the ego as the autonomous agent of the psyche.  Hence in his salient 1949 essay, "The Mirror Stage as Formative of the 'I' Function as Revealed in the Psychoanalytic Experience," Lacan variously describes the formation and consequent function of the ego as a schismatic event of misrecognition, an epiphenomenon of narcissism, and a process of dialectical tension.  The latter sets up an interchange between identification and alienation, generating confusion between being a subject as opposed to an object, between self and other, between what is "me" and "not me."The drama of the ego's emergence in what Lacan has designated "the Mirror Stage" explains its contrary nature.  Somewhere between 6 and 18 months of age, an infant will likely encounter his (or her) own reflection in a mirror.  At this phase of development, the child lacks any sense of a unified self but, encouraged by an adult, is able to recognize his reflection in the glass and, at the same time, comes to understand that the specular image looking back at him is, in fact, not himself.  In other words, the image provides the infant with the first glimpse of himself as an object and specifically as "other."  According to Lacan, the initial fascination and pleasure the child experiences upon self-recognition dissolves into confusion at being unable to distinguish between what is and what is not himself.  Therefore, such recognition amounts to a kind of misrecognition, the French term for which, méconnaissance, implies an essential misunderstanding or lack of knowledge.Furthermore, while the reflection in the mirror appears coherent, coordinated, and whole, the child himself continues to perceive his body as uncoordinated and fragmentary, resulting in a profound sense of incongruity and disharmony.  By exuding mastery and harmony, the mirror image serves as a gestalt; it holds up an "Ideal-I" or future self that promises completeness and perfection-a condition, Lacan believes, that is ultimately unattainable, though we will likely spend the rest of our lives in pursuit of it.  Overall, the infant's reaction to the image or Ideal-I is narcissistic: he feels both attraction to it as a model and aggression toward it as a rival.Alienation, lack, absence, and conflict are thus constitutive of the Lacanian ego.  The child's image and, hence, the emerging ego mark an ontological gap that serves as a repository for the projections and desires, whether conscious or unconscious, of parents and others.  Consequently, this image is, as Adrian Johnston points out, "always already overwritten" with words that are not the child's own.  For Johnston, the ego could more properly be described as "a coagulation of inter- and trans-subjective alien influences."  Rather than a "fluid and autonomous subject," it becomes a rigid and "heteronomous" entity.  Derived from the desires of others, this ego is, in Lacanian terms, "extimate," or internally exterior.  It is an irreducible contradiction, both alien and alienating.This ego paradigm diverges from the more familiar and cohesive Freudian notion of the ego as the sovereign organizer of the personality, the rational mediator between internal drives and social pressures that in the interests of self-preservation will also resort to deceptions and defense mechanisms.  From a Lacanian perspective, the ego is intrinsically and irreparably divided; it functions mainly to support the fictional construct we identify-or rather, misrecognize-as the "self." -Given the information in Paragraph 2, the author would most likely agree with which of the following assertions?

Passage The Aran Islands, a trio of carboniferous limestone slabs, likely more than 350 million years old, are situated at the mouth of Galway Bay off the western coast of Ireland, on what in ages past must have seemed the very periphery of the civilized world.  For those who have dared to test the habitability of these rocky fragments, one certainty has always awaited: challenge.  Indeed, the presumed prototype of the Aran economy has been one of bare subsistence, a veritable experiment in self-sufficiency, demanding resourcefulness, endurance, and, above all, austerity.Of the three isles, Inishmore, the largest and westernmost, whose length forms a 9-mile breakwater against the Atlantic, has perhaps also been the most economically diverse and certainly the most historically colorful.  The island hosted the first monastic communities of Ireland and withstood the blunt force of Viking raiders and, centuries later, Cromwellian soldiers.  Following these invasions, the population-and the economy along with it-managed to flourish despite a landscape whose barrenness offered an almost equal shortage of arable land and surface water.  In addition, Inishmore's prolonged growing season, the result of year-round moderate temperatures, afforded an exquisite irony: the flora and fauna it supported, a curious admixture of that which could be found in alpine, Mediterranean, and arctic climes, were wonders for the naturalist to behold but worthless to inhabitants seeking to sustain themselves on the land's bounty.  Nevertheless, the island has long been able to defy its hardscrabble character and has demonstrated a talent for economic self-reinvention, all the while retaining its image as pristine, primitive, and inhospitable.By the early 19th century, the denizens of Inishmore had learned to effectively counterbalance the meagerness of their island's natural resources by swiftly focusing on new and evermore efficient ways to exploit them.  For example, the abundance of seaweed off its shores supplied a remedy for the scarcity of soil.  Once most of the boulders were cleared away, the sand could be layered with the seaweed, which, as it rotted, transformed the granular matter into fertile earth in which common crops such as barley, rye, oats, and potatoes have since been cultivated.  More land also meant more livestock could be raised, and the grass-fed calves of the island are still prized by mainlanders.  Seaweed could also be harvested by the ton and burnt in kilns to produce kelp, the sale of which on the mainland continues to be a thriving, if seasonal, industry, often more reliable than fishing.This is not, however, to say that life on the Aran isles was ever easy; in fact, the lifestyle of the inhabitants demanded a delicate equilibrium, and in the face of economic marginality most households resorted to occupational plurality-to include any combination of fishing, agriculture, kelp-making, boat-making, fowling, textiles, and manual labor.  Yet, despite this ever-shifting quest for resources, life on Inishmore even in the 1800s was a far cry from that depicted in Robert J. Flaherty's self-styled documentary film of 1934, Man of Aran, which dramatized the islanders' daily existence as a never-ending and desperate struggle against the elements, particularly the constant apocalyptic threat of the sea.Eighty years later, this image of Aran life endures, perpetuating a myth that has arguably become a commodity as real as the Man of Aran sweater sold on Inishmore but typically knit elsewhere in Ireland-a symbol of the island's dual character, of its commercial nature that so patently contradicts its celebrated identity as isolated and self-sufficient.  Still, the persistence of this image of remoteness, exposure, and inexorable hardship, however fabricated or embellished, has helped the island reinvent its economy as one heavily reliant on the outside-particularly on a tourist industry that brings in as many as 2,000 visitors a day by ferry-rather than self-sufficient. -Based on the passage, which of the following BEST characterizes the most recent economy of Inishmore?

Passage Christ Church, a colonial-era Anglican church near Weems, Virginia, is far from a typical house of worship.  Completed in 1735, the building has been conjectured by some to be based on a prototype by the renowned English architect Christopher Wren-indeed, it bears a more than canny resemblance to Farley Church in Wiltshire, England, which Wren designed back in the 1660s.  Christ Church was originally an unassuming wooden construct commissioned in 1665 by John Carter, a wealthy Virginia tobacco planter who sailed from his native England to American shores in 1635.  In 1730, his son Robert-who had by then become one of the wealthiest and most influential figures in the region-was determined to replace the wooden structure with a brick one.  He died in 1732, leaving three male offspring to oversee the completion of what experts would later hail as "the most finely crafted Anglican parish church in all of colonial Virginia."  Historical websites laud the church as "an extraordinary example of eighteenth-century architecture, featuring meticulous brickwork, vaulted ceilings, and gorgeous compass-headed windows."  Notably, it also contains a triple-decker pulpit-a rare but distinctive feature of its era.  In recent decades, however, Christ Church has become an object of interest more for what it conceals than for what it reveals.The remarkable intricacies of this church's architecture point to its dual nature as not just a religious sanctuary, but as a veritable temple to the Enlightenment, a kind of shrine to rationality.  Beneath its surface, Christ Church represents an architectural feat of mathematical precision in harmony with nature's laws.  In fact, horologist H. Stephen Stewart has characterized it as "a building of numbers"-specifically, calendric, solar, and lunar numbers.  As Stewart explains, two weeks after the vernal equinox, on the mean date for Easter, a sunbeam shines through the oval window above the main entrance that faces due west and rests upon the altar; this phenomenon repeats itself two weeks prior to the autumnal equinox.  Additionally, a shadow cast from a cornice of the church tracks the progression from spring to fall as it moves vertically along the church's outer west wall at the pace of a single row of bricks per day.  Moreover, for eight hours each day, the building serves as a sundial, casting its shadow on its north lawn.  This seemingly multifunctional edifice has been aptly pronounced "a time machine" by Stewart.The church's locale and physical orientation are critical; not just any site could have offered the perfect astronomical alignment.  Yet, as journalist Joy Aschenbach describes, "The Church's location was a rather lonely one, with woods all around, few or no houses near, and no good roads."  Its geographical remoteness and splendid isolation are reminiscent of another unusual sanctuary, the fifth-century BCE Temple to Apollo, the god of the sun and rationality, at Bassae in Greece.  As with the church, the temple's structure has been attributed to a famous architect, Iktynos, designer of the Athenian Parthenon.  Thrust deep into the countryside, it sits atop Kotylion Mountain, holding dominion over a desolate landscape through which, until the last century, no truly passable road led.  Thus, virtually inaccessible, the imposing sanctuary stood long forgotten.  In contemporary times it has been under restoration and studied for how, positioned north to south rather than east to west, it tracks the annual phases of the sun.  Likewise, Christ Church has resurged from encroaching dilapidation to bask in "lonely majesty" even as scientists figure the calculus of its blueprint.Clearly neither of these structures acquired its characteristics through happenstance.  The spaces created are at once pragmatic and sacred, their purposes overtly divine even while their designs honor nature and extol reason. -The description of Putnam's thought experiments would suggest which of the following about Twin Earth?

Passage Jorge Luis Borges' 1946 short story "On Exactitude in Science" plays with the well-known aphorism, "The map is not the territory."  In this paragraph-long fable, an empire's ambitious cartographers produce a map so spectacularly isomorphic it corresponds precisely in scale and detail with the kingdom it represents.  Perfect yet useless, the map is virtually indistinguishable from the landscape until it begins to decay.  In a 1981 treatise, Simulacra and Simulation, French sociologist Jean Baudrillard cites Borges' tale as "the finest allegory" of his own provocative proposition that, in the current era, we have lost the ability to distinguish between reality and its representation.  Thus, Baudrillard-known as an extreme cultural relativist and often mocked as "the high priest of postmodernism"-postulates that "it is no longer a question of either maps or territories"; rather, "[s]omething has disappeared: the sovereign difference, between one and the other," that, he laments, once "constituted the charm of abstraction."  Indeed, our postmodernist world is saturated with signs, symbols, and images that are never neutral or transparent but, by mediating reality, come to construct it.  Consequently, in a sinister twist on the story, Baudrillard can assert that "today it is the territory whose shreds slowly rot across the map."  As he elaborates, "[T]he territory no longer precedes the map, nor does it survive it."  Instead, "[i]t is…the map that precedes the territory…that engenders the territory."  In other words, representation can be seen to precede, produce, and ultimately surpass reality.But how can a copy be the antecedent of an original?  How does an image become so alienated from reality?  In Baudrillard's scheme, signs are subject to degeneration.  Initially, a sign reflects reality, substituting for an original; like a carefully crafted counterfeit, it is a faithful but identifiable copy.  In the next stage, the sign devolves into a less faithful copy of the original, thus distorting what it represents and masking reality.  In its penultimate phase, the representation no longer pretends to be the original but now instead pretends to be a copy; hence, it masks an absence of reality and erodes the distinction between the real and representation.  For instance, when images are mass produced, they propagate, taking on a life of their own and diminishing the authoritative aura of the original.  In the final stage of the sign's devolution, it can claim "no relation to any reality whatsoever"; it no longer reflects or refers to reality but instead signifies nothing but signification.  It has become a pure simulation, a suspiciously specious semblance Baudrillard calls the simulacrum.In Baudrillardian theory, when the distinction between representation and reality, sign and referent, original and reproduction disintegrates, the real disappears; we are left with copies of copies that no longer have-or never had-an original.  What remains, then, is a "hyperreality" of simulacra and simulation.  So, Baudrillard maintains, "[s]imulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or substance....  It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody."  It is instead a question of substitution, of "substituting the signs of the real for the real."  As one writer describes it, "The simulation is no longer a reflection of reality, nor a reference to it, but a creation of a new real by models that are not based on reality."  This new real may be genetically engineered, as with cloning, or possibly computer generated.  Even something as essential as currency has been progressively replaced, first by checks and then by credit and debit cards, until finally only numbers, divorced from any concrete reality, are exchanged on money transfer apps.  Likewise, as reality dissolves into the hyperreality of simulacra, human experience devolves into "a simulation of reality." -The well-known aphorism cited in Paragraph 1:

Passage In the 1890s, the world of American dance underwent a profound transformation when a group of pioneering dancers dared to challenge the rigid 350-year-old protocols of classical ballet.  The likes of Isadora Duncan, Loie Fuller, and Ruth St. Denis rebelled against ballet tradition while simultaneously rejecting the alternative world of vaudeville.  Duncan, in particular, was a proponent of what was deemed "uninhibited freedom of movement."  Appearing on stage in a loose tunic with bare feet and her hair down, she performed natural, flowing movements she claimed "emanated from her solar plexus."  For her part, Fuller combined billowing costumes, dramatic lighting, and improvised movements in attempting to imitate natural phenomena, as exemplified by her "serpentine" dance.  Meanwhile, St. Denis and her partner Ted Shawn incorporated elements of Native American and East Asian ritualistic dance into their work.  These artists managed to break through the prejudice of tradition, clearing the way for the advent of modern dance in the20th century.The second generation of artists, which included Doris Humphrey and Lester Horton, continued to loosen dance from the restraints of classical ballet.  Many were also determined to raise the audience's consciousness about contemporary social concerns during a time that witnessed the aftermath of World War I, increased industrialization, the Great Depression, and the rise of fascism in Europe.  For a while, the modern dance movement became more than an assault on classical ballet; by dramatizing events on stage to inspire a collective emotional response, dance became a vehicle designed to spur sociopolitical change.Martha Graham, a student of St. Denis and Shawn, went on to develop a radical new system of movement.  The "Graham technique" originated from her cardinal belief that movement expresses the emotions that people attempt to conceal and words are inadequate to express.  The new technique was organic; based on the natural rhythm of breathing, it exaggerated the muscular contraction and release, as well as the consequent flexion of the spine, required to breathe.  The visual effects were startling, and the iconoclastic Graham went so far as to assert that the technique "represented the human being's inner conflicts."  Furthermore, the movement of contraction became a regular feature of modern dance, which, as some sources stress, was "used, altered, and redefined by many subsequent choreographers."As modern dance evolved, it became the antithesis of ballet, which followed strict patterns of movement and aimed to be light and graceful.  By contrast, the new dance style was often angular, jagged, and stark; the choreography featured nonlinear movements and irregular contours.  Instead of working against gravity as in ballet's sequences of vertical leaps, the contemporary style made gravity the dancers' ally in initiating movements from the lower abdomen with their bare feet rooted to the floor.  Whereas ballet emphasized the body's limbs, the new dance mode accentuated the torso.  While ballet was made to appear effortless, Graham's main goal as a choreographer was to display the physical exertion of articulating emotion through the body's movement.Graham also strove to make the works she created and choreographed holistic.  She collaborated with sculptor Isamu Noguchi on stage sets, consulted with the designer Halston on costumes, and partnered with composers such as Louis Horst and Samuel Barber.  Aaron Copland wrote the score to the highly acclaimed modern "ballet" Appalachian Spring, which Graham choreographed and in which she performed the lead female role in 1944.  Building on the foundation of her precursors, Graham-who continued to dance until age 76 and to choreograph until shortly before her death at 96-made modern dance, in one scholar's estimation, "an established art form that was no longer merely regarded as an avant-garde aberration." -The description of the "Graham technique" of dance largely reveals that:

Passage First of all, the notion that more than one author was responsible for the composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey may fail to account adequately for the artistic unity and linguistic cohesion that mark these two works.  The idea of dual authorship instead privileges the inconsistencies between the texts stressed by late 19^th- and early 20^th-century scholars who suggested that the two epics are not, in fact, the work of a single poetic genius.  The promulgation of this theory served to undermine an earlier fundamentalist faith in a consensus from antiquity: one and only one poet called Homer authored both poems.Second of all, even if more than one author existed under the guise of Homer, there is no denying that these epics represent the culmination of a long tradition of oral poetry-specifically, oral verse concerning the Trojan War.  The existence of this oral tradition has sometimes been used to speculate that the texts we have of the Iliad and the Odyssey were merely strung together from shorter poems about warrior-heroes sung by itinerant bards to regale the aristocratic courts of ancient Greece.  In this context, the name "Homer" has been explained as a generic designation signifying either a group of ancient singer-poets or an imaginary author to whom a collective body of oral poetry was attributed.That epic poems of more than 12,000 lines could have been recited from memory has been well documented.  Research undertaken at the beginning of the 20^th century identified singers in the Balkans who could perform monumental epic poems from memory.  These performers seemed to have memorized discrete episodes or sections of poetry, arranging these as they recited.  Since then, it has been almost universally recognized that any theory about Homeric authorship must accommodate the oral tradition.Today many scholars find it unlikely that the same individual composed both Homeric epics.  Compellingly, even the ancient consensus that there was just one author cannot be traced further back than about 520 BCE when the two poems-which had been committed to writing in their recognizable form sometime after the introduction of the alphabet to Greece in the 8^th century BCE-were recited by bards at the festival of Athena.  Prior to this, there had already been some controversy regarding the authorship of the poems.  In particular, an alternative tradition claimed that the Odyssey had been written by the poet Melesigenes, who then appropriated the name Homer.Likewise, leading Homericists now conjecture more specifically that one poet wrote the Iliad and that the Odyssey was composed sometime later by a second.  This theory rests on two basic premises:  (1) Each poem has its own well-defined and unified design that discredits the possibility it is merely a pastiche of shorter poems passed down orally and finally stabilized in written form; and (2) differences between the poems seem to point to separate authors.  Scholars cite not only linguistic inconsistencies, including differences in vocabulary, but also discrepancies in background, underlying beliefs, ethics, and even geographical orientation.  Intriguingly, researchers have also found evidence in the Odyssey of imitation of passages from the Iliad.A few skeptics, however, continue to insist that the stylistic similarities between the two epics ascribed to Homer are too striking to support a theory of multiple authorship.  Far from clinging to idealistic notions of artistry or outdated modes of manuscript study, these single-author theorists have combined information technology and analysis of linguistic style to produce a legitimate body of evidence they can marshal against the prevailing trend. West, Martin. "The Homeric Question Today," in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol 155. No. 4, December 2011. -Which of the following statements BEST describes the central focus of the passage?

Passage Certain schools of thought that arose in the mid- to late 20th century and have since been labeled "poststructuralist" are well known for their propensity to "problematize," "destabilize," or "radicalize" the concepts of previous thinkers.  For example, the controversial French poststructuralist and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan sought to reenvision the concept, first introduced by Freud in the early 1900s, of the ego as the autonomous agent of the psyche.  Hence in his salient 1949 essay, "The Mirror Stage as Formative of the 'I' Function as Revealed in the Psychoanalytic Experience," Lacan variously describes the formation and consequent function of the ego as a schismatic event of misrecognition, an epiphenomenon of narcissism, and a process of dialectical tension.  The latter sets up an interchange between identification and alienation, generating confusion between being a subject as opposed to an object, between self and other, between what is "me" and "not me."The drama of the ego's emergence in what Lacan has designated "the Mirror Stage" explains its contrary nature.  Somewhere between 6 and 18 months of age, an infant will likely encounter his (or her) own reflection in a mirror.  At this phase of development, the child lacks any sense of a unified self but, encouraged by an adult, is able to recognize his reflection in the glass and, at the same time, comes to understand that the specular image looking back at him is, in fact, not himself.  In other words, the image provides the infant with the first glimpse of himself as an object and specifically as "other."  According to Lacan, the initial fascination and pleasure the child experiences upon self-recognition dissolves into confusion at being unable to distinguish between what is and what is not himself.  Therefore, such recognition amounts to a kind of misrecognition, the French term for which, méconnaissance, implies an essential misunderstanding or lack of knowledge.Furthermore, while the reflection in the mirror appears coherent, coordinated, and whole, the child himself continues to perceive his body as uncoordinated and fragmentary, resulting in a profound sense of incongruity and disharmony.  By exuding mastery and harmony, the mirror image serves as a gestalt; it holds up an "Ideal-I" or future self that promises completeness and perfection-a condition, Lacan believes, that is ultimately unattainable, though we will likely spend the rest of our lives in pursuit of it.  Overall, the infant's reaction to the image or Ideal-I is narcissistic: he feels both attraction to it as a model and aggression toward it as a rival.Alienation, lack, absence, and conflict are thus constitutive of the Lacanian ego.  The child's image and, hence, the emerging ego mark an ontological gap that serves as a repository for the projections and desires, whether conscious or unconscious, of parents and others.  Consequently, this image is, as Adrian Johnston points out, "always already overwritten" with words that are not the child's own.  For Johnston, the ego could more properly be described as "a coagulation of inter- and trans-subjective alien influences."  Rather than a "fluid and autonomous subject," it becomes a rigid and "heteronomous" entity.  Derived from the desires of others, this ego is, in Lacanian terms, "extimate," or internally exterior.  It is an irreducible contradiction, both alien and alienating.This ego paradigm diverges from the more familiar and cohesive Freudian notion of the ego as the sovereign organizer of the personality, the rational mediator between internal drives and social pressures that in the interests of self-preservation will also resort to deceptions and defense mechanisms.  From a Lacanian perspective, the ego is intrinsically and irreparably divided; it functions mainly to support the fictional construct we identify-or rather, misrecognize-as the "self." -Gambardella's use of such terms as "parable" and "ethical benchmark" to explain Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence suggests that he believes:

Passage Certain schools of thought that arose in the mid- to late 20th century and have since been labeled "poststructuralist" are well known for their propensity to "problematize," "destabilize," or "radicalize" the concepts of previous thinkers.  For example, the controversial French poststructuralist and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan sought to reenvision the concept, first introduced by Freud in the early 1900s, of the ego as the autonomous agent of the psyche.  Hence in his salient 1949 essay, "The Mirror Stage as Formative of the 'I' Function as Revealed in the Psychoanalytic Experience," Lacan variously describes the formation and consequent function of the ego as a schismatic event of misrecognition, an epiphenomenon of narcissism, and a process of dialectical tension.  The latter sets up an interchange between identification and alienation, generating confusion between being a subject as opposed to an object, between self and other, between what is "me" and "not me."The drama of the ego's emergence in what Lacan has designated "the Mirror Stage" explains its contrary nature.  Somewhere between 6 and 18 months of age, an infant will likely encounter his (or her) own reflection in a mirror.  At this phase of development, the child lacks any sense of a unified self but, encouraged by an adult, is able to recognize his reflection in the glass and, at the same time, comes to understand that the specular image looking back at him is, in fact, not himself.  In other words, the image provides the infant with the first glimpse of himself as an object and specifically as "other."  According to Lacan, the initial fascination and pleasure the child experiences upon self-recognition dissolves into confusion at being unable to distinguish between what is and what is not himself.  Therefore, such recognition amounts to a kind of misrecognition, the French term for which, méconnaissance, implies an essential misunderstanding or lack of knowledge.Furthermore, while the reflection in the mirror appears coherent, coordinated, and whole, the child himself continues to perceive his body as uncoordinated and fragmentary, resulting in a profound sense of incongruity and disharmony.  By exuding mastery and harmony, the mirror image serves as a gestalt; it holds up an "Ideal-I" or future self that promises completeness and perfection-a condition, Lacan believes, that is ultimately unattainable, though we will likely spend the rest of our lives in pursuit of it.  Overall, the infant's reaction to the image or Ideal-I is narcissistic: he feels both attraction to it as a model and aggression toward it as a rival.Alienation, lack, absence, and conflict are thus constitutive of the Lacanian ego.  The child's image and, hence, the emerging ego mark an ontological gap that serves as a repository for the projections and desires, whether conscious or unconscious, of parents and others.  Consequently, this image is, as Adrian Johnston points out, "always already overwritten" with words that are not the child's own.  For Johnston, the ego could more properly be described as "a coagulation of inter- and trans-subjective alien influences."  Rather than a "fluid and autonomous subject," it becomes a rigid and "heteronomous" entity.  Derived from the desires of others, this ego is, in Lacanian terms, "extimate," or internally exterior.  It is an irreducible contradiction, both alien and alienating.This ego paradigm diverges from the more familiar and cohesive Freudian notion of the ego as the sovereign organizer of the personality, the rational mediator between internal drives and social pressures that in the interests of self-preservation will also resort to deceptions and defense mechanisms.  From a Lacanian perspective, the ego is intrinsically and irreparably divided; it functions mainly to support the fictional construct we identify-or rather, misrecognize-as the "self." -Given passage information, which of the following assertions most aptly describes how the economic climate in the mid- to late nineteenth century was transformed by the telegraph?

Passage There may be reasons to reject the idea of lengthening the school day.  None of them, however, are good reasons.  Rather, the supposed demerits of such a proposal fall easily in the face of its numerous advantages.The first of these advantages lies in reducing the need for childcare.  It is a curious fact of American life that the adult's work schedule and the child's school schedule are misaligned.  Children rise with the sun to head to classes, only to be sent home again hours before parents return from their jobs.  In a society where, more often than not, both parents work, this discordance creates the need for an expensive arrangement to fill the gap in families' routines.  For instance, studies show that in 2016, childcare costs accounted for 9.5 to 17.5 percent of median family income, depending on the state.  Today, 40 percent of families nationwide spend over 15 percent of their income on childcare.  Transportation to and from care sites only adds to that expense.An extended school day also allows for greater diversity and depth in curricula.  Schools across the country have increasingly cut instruction in arts, music, and physical education (as well as recess) in order to meet objectives in reading and math.  While this unfortunate state of affairs can be partially blamed on overzealous attention to standardized tests, it points to the larger deleterious trend of narrowing students' instruction.  With a longer school day such eliminated subjects can be restored, enriching students with a more well-rounded education.To this proposal, however, critics may object that the added time would impose strain on educators.  Can we truly ask schoolteachers-already among the most overworked individuals in society-to endure even more hours in the classroom?  The answer is that a lengthened school day need not distress teachers nor add to their already cumbersome workload.  By providing for additional areas of study in the arts and humanities, the extension would give schools cause to hire new, perhaps specialized, faculty to offer these courses.  Moreover, the time could also be allocated to sports, academic clubs, and other extracurricular activities.However, this point speaks to another objection, namely, the cost of adjusting the school day.  Whether through paying current teachers more or hiring new ones, implementing such a proposal would entail a significant financial expenditure.  There are at least two responses to this line of thinking.  First is that this increase in the cost of schooling would be offset and likely surpassed by the aforementioned savings in childcare.  Thus, while it is true that schools would require greater funding (potentially necessitating higher property taxes), parents would ultimately pay the same or less overall, with greater educational opportunities for their children and fewer transportational burdens.  Second is that schools should be better funded regardless.  Recently, some schools-especially those in rural areas-have even reduced school weeks to only four days as a cost-saving measure.  It is beyond dispute that schools across the board both need and deserve a radically increased investment from citizens.  Lengthening the school day is simply one manifestation of how such funding should be utilized.With this one change, states can coordinate the lives of parents and children, expand curricular offerings, and reduce the need for costly childcare.  These worthy and desirable aims provide a clear justification for extending the school day. -Which of the following educational proposals would the passage author most likely support?

Passage Certain schools of thought that arose in the mid- to late 20th century and have since been labeled "poststructuralist" are well known for their propensity to "problematize," "destabilize," or "radicalize" the concepts of previous thinkers.  For example, the controversial French poststructuralist and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan sought to reenvision the concept, first introduced by Freud in the early 1900s, of the ego as the autonomous agent of the psyche.  Hence in his salient 1949 essay, "The Mirror Stage as Formative of the 'I' Function as Revealed in the Psychoanalytic Experience," Lacan variously describes the formation and consequent function of the ego as a schismatic event of misrecognition, an epiphenomenon of narcissism, and a process of dialectical tension.  The latter sets up an interchange between identification and alienation, generating confusion between being a subject as opposed to an object, between self and other, between what is "me" and "not me."The drama of the ego's emergence in what Lacan has designated "the Mirror Stage" explains its contrary nature.  Somewhere between 6 and 18 months of age, an infant will likely encounter his (or her) own reflection in a mirror.  At this phase of development, the child lacks any sense of a unified self but, encouraged by an adult, is able to recognize his reflection in the glass and, at the same time, comes to understand that the specular image looking back at him is, in fact, not himself.  In other words, the image provides the infant with the first glimpse of himself as an object and specifically as "other."  According to Lacan, the initial fascination and pleasure the child experiences upon self-recognition dissolves into confusion at being unable to distinguish between what is and what is not himself.  Therefore, such recognition amounts to a kind of misrecognition, the French term for which, méconnaissance, implies an essential misunderstanding or lack of knowledge.Furthermore, while the reflection in the mirror appears coherent, coordinated, and whole, the child himself continues to perceive his body as uncoordinated and fragmentary, resulting in a profound sense of incongruity and disharmony.  By exuding mastery and harmony, the mirror image serves as a gestalt; it holds up an "Ideal-I" or future self that promises completeness and perfection-a condition, Lacan believes, that is ultimately unattainable, though we will likely spend the rest of our lives in pursuit of it.  Overall, the infant's reaction to the image or Ideal-I is narcissistic: he feels both attraction to it as a model and aggression toward it as a rival.Alienation, lack, absence, and conflict are thus constitutive of the Lacanian ego.  The child's image and, hence, the emerging ego mark an ontological gap that serves as a repository for the projections and desires, whether conscious or unconscious, of parents and others.  Consequently, this image is, as Adrian Johnston points out, "always already overwritten" with words that are not the child's own.  For Johnston, the ego could more properly be described as "a coagulation of inter- and trans-subjective alien influences."  Rather than a "fluid and autonomous subject," it becomes a rigid and "heteronomous" entity.  Derived from the desires of others, this ego is, in Lacanian terms, "extimate," or internally exterior.  It is an irreducible contradiction, both alien and alienating.This ego paradigm diverges from the more familiar and cohesive Freudian notion of the ego as the sovereign organizer of the personality, the rational mediator between internal drives and social pressures that in the interests of self-preservation will also resort to deceptions and defense mechanisms.  From a Lacanian perspective, the ego is intrinsically and irreparably divided; it functions mainly to support the fictional construct we identify-or rather, misrecognize-as the "self." -The problems in art scholarship addressed by Youngna Kim relate to which of the following issues?I.  Non-academic agendas /_II.  Inadequate funding for research /_III.  Inequities between fields of study

Passage At the forefront of the modernist poetry movement were T. S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, and others, such as Ezra Pound, whose injunction, "Make it new!" characterized their artistic approach.  Hindered by the same internal conflict plaguing many intellectuals within the cultural upheavals of the time, these poets felt, on one level, that old linguistic certainties had evaporated and new forms must be embraced.  Yet many of them, particularly the later modernist poets, maintained a sentimental attachment to all that had been lost from the cultural certitude of earlier eras, their despondency reflected in much of their work.  At the periphery of the movement were E. E. Cummings and Robert Frost, who were named among modernist poets largely for the chronological classification of their poetry and not necessarily for their style or means of artistic production.A self-titled "poet" and "painter," Cummings was beyond his time in his efforts to innovate.  He would become well known for his erratic applications of punctuation and syntax, and, later, for his visual configurations of words.  Much of Cummings' writing also used idiosyncratic similes and metaphors.  This style, which later evolved to include symbolism and allegory, caused even some of the most progressive modernists to dismiss his work as eccentric, self-indulgent, and lacking depth.  However, as a quintessential dissenter, Cummings remained unaffected by the reactions of his contemporaries and focused more on creating a graphic effect with words.To Cummings, the artist was not one who discerns or describes, but one who feels.  He often contrasted the "doing" of others-scientists in particular-to the "being" of the artist.  Compared to what he defined as the "nonartist," Cummings held that the artist must be original, self-reliant, and free to live according to his or her own truth.  For Cummings, this meant disentanglement from any shackles of societal standards, ranging from the man-made notions of reality and reason to traditional literary conventions.Contrarily, Frost believed that a true poet could-and should-achieve poetic excellence without resorting to what he described as the "new ways of being new."  Consequently, his poetry was composed of ordinary sounds that derived from conventional language.  Although many contemporary critics dismissed his work as overly simplistic, or "too near the level of talk," Frost remained unperturbed by such views, holding that poetry sprang from the natural intonations of a person's voice and should remain true to traditional forms.Frost claimed that "a poem begins with delight, it inclines to the impulse, it assumes direction with the first line laid down."  This conception of a poem led Frost to elucidate that, behind the scenes, the poet must always approach writing intimately and organically, allowing the words to originate seamlessly from "a lump in the throat, a homesickness, a loneliness."  Provoking both poet and reader to recollect an oft-distant truth lingering in some obscure region of the brain, this practice culminates in wisdom that may be profound or just a momentary reprieve from the world.Uncompromising and not always popular, Frost and Cummings nevertheless mingled with the literary elite and developed long-term acquaintances with Ezra Pound, who especially championed Frost's literary career.  Each shared with other modernist poets an opposition to the scientific rationalism and commercialist vulgarity that had infiltrated Western culture after the Industrial Revolution.  Yet both poets also continued to exhibit a commitment to the role of nonconformist and favored aspects of the Romantic poetry movement-namely, the significance of the individual's experience and the rejection of societal scrutiny-over the tormenting self-doubt that had beset their peers.  Thus, even in an age defined by its pure and absolute originality, Frost and Cummings occupied unique positions within the modernist poetry movement. -The passage suggests that Barker's panorama of Edinburgh might have been more accurate than Hollar's view of London because Barker's panorama:

Passage In September 1940, near the tiny village of Montignac in the southwest region of France, a band of four youths and a dog accidentally stumbled upon the opening to a series of underground caverns whose walls were covered with prehistoric paintings.  Their monumental discovery unleashed a mystery that has continued to puzzle scholars: What function did these magnificent caves perform for the society that painted them?  One plausible theory, yet unproven, is that they constituted a kind of sacred space, perhaps a site for religious ceremonies.Decades of work recording and analyzing the contents of this labyrinthine underworld, which came to be called Lascaux, have yielded some clues.  Pollen testing, carbon-14 dating, and the examination of flint and bone tools within the caves have been used to calculate the time period during which these subterranean reaches were painted and served their function.  The paintings date from between 17,000 and 12,000 BCE, which places them within the Upper Paleolithic era.  More specifically, they belong to the Magdalenian period of the last ice age that preceded the dawn of the current geological epoch and the invention of agriculture.More than 2,000 paintings and symbols cover the insides of the caverns.  Approximately 900 of these depict horses, bison, stags, large felines, and hares, clearly reflecting a society of hunter-gatherers.  Various pigments, mainly red, yellow, and brown, were used.  By employing a novel method that took advantage of the edges and curvatures of the cave walls, the artists were able to give lifelike dimensions to these images and endow them with a sense of motion.  Nevertheless, the cave art of Lascaux suggests a purpose that goes beyond artistic expression.It is likely these chambers served as a sanctuary within which the paintings would have corresponded to the iconography of a temple.  Moreover, countless footprints shown to have belonged to adolescent males suggest that the caves may have hosted initiation rituals marking a boy's passage from childhood to maturity.  At this critical juncture, the youths would have traditionally been separated from their families by the adult males and put through frightening ordeals.  The boys might have been tattooed, confined, or presented with physical challenges.  The purpose of such traumas was to prepare the adolescent for the physical and psychological rigors of the hunt, the brutalities of warfare, and the inevitable trials of adulthood.  Theologian Karen Armstrong describes such experiences as triggering "a regressive disorganization of the personality" followed by "a constructive reorganization" of the individual's faculties.  In other words, the rites were meant to force the youth to call upon inner resources of which he was not yet aware, thereby inducing a kind of psychological death and rebirth.Lying deep within the earth, the caves would have provided the perfect container for these traumatic rites-a fact that became evident when Lascaux was opened to the public in 1948.  As mythologist Joseph Campbell recalled of his visit there, when the lights were out, all normal orientation and sense of time were suspended and "you were never in darker darkness in your life."  In primitive societies, descending into the darkness of the caves must have seemed like immersing oneself in what religious historian Mircea Eliade has termed "sacred time," a kind of dissociative state conducive to the deeply transformative experience of the initiate.  When illuminated against the blackness, the realistic murals would have become a moving spectacle that simulated the hunt, the wonder and gravity of which was forever imprinted upon the boys' psyches. -The passage suggests that the most interesting feature of the Lascaux caves is:

Passage An untamed but generative masculine spirit, ubiquitous though often elusive, haunts the interconnection of humans with nature.  Among its most prominent images are the carved faces, formed from leaves or sprouting them, that peer out from medieval church ceilings and walls.  At once comic and forbidding, this foliate head is neither a gargoyle nor a merely decorative motif, but an archetype whose history stretches as deeply into the mists of time and myth as the roots of a tree.  Nevertheless, it was only as recently as 1939 that British scholar Julia Hamilton Somerset, better known as Lady Raglan, noting a carved face of entwined leaves in a church in southeast Wales, initiated a study of similar images and christened this mysterious male presence the "Green Man."Like many mythological figures, the Green Man is syncretic, interweaving several images and themes or variations on a pattern.  He is, as writer John Matthews claims, "far larger than any simple attempt to define him."  Chiefly, the Green Man symbolizes the union of humans and nature.  Indissolubly linked with the vegetative cycle and the agricultural year, he exudes vitality and fertility and signals both material and spiritual abundance.  Whether as the foliage-covered King of the May Day, also called Jack-in-the-Green, or as the King of the Harvest, John Barleycorn, the Green Man has been an indispensable element of traditional European village celebrations.  He is Keeper of the Forest as well as woodwose, the wild man of the woods, and is sometimes recognized as the consort of Mother Nature.Green Man images can be found in mosaics and carvings from the early Roman Empire.  Originally a pagan icon, the Green Man was incorporated into early Christian iconography, reaching a zenith of architectural popularity in Europe from the eleventh through the fifteenth century.  Notably, Chartres Cathedral in France, built in 1194, features 70 foliate heads, while in Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland, constructed in 1446, no fewer than 103 such heads can be counted.  The Green Man was also known farther east; for instance, near Hatra in present-day Iraq, an imposing leafy countenance stares out from the façade of an ancient temple.The Green Man's lineage is multifaceted.  In the West he is a variant of Dionysus, the god of the vine who dies and is reborn.  Indeed, the fifth-century BCE statue of a leaf-clad Dionysus or Bacchus in Naples, Italy, is perhaps his oldest surviving image, although Dionysus may himself descend from the green-skinned Egyptian god Osiris who likewise dies and rises.  The Green Man is thought to be related to the rustic Greco-Roman deities Pan and Silvanus, and, more speculatively, to Cernunnos, the Celtic horned god of the hunt and lord of the animals.  In the East this mythic being manifests in the figure of Al-Khidir, the Verdant or Green One who is a spiritual guide of heroes in the Koran.Green Man figures also pervade Western literature, which was influenced at its origin by the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh and its character of Enkidu, a wild, shaggy nature man fashioned by the gods as a counterpart to the young King Gilgamesh.  Later the medieval tales of King Arthur feature the baffling Green Knight, who, like the eastern Al-Khidir, is a warrior guide.  In the fifteenth century, the Green Man reemerges as Robin Hood; in the twentieth century, J. M. Barrie's eternally youthful Peter Pan is tellingly "clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that flow from trees."In Matthews' view, the Green Man is the embodiment of "unvanquishable greenness."  This perspective might explain the recurrence of his image and its recent adoption by environmental awareness movements as an assurance of ecological renewal. -The author's attitude toward the passage topic can best be described as:

Passage In 1482, a thirty-year-old Leonardo da Vinci left his art studio in Florence and traveled to Milan to seek employment at the court of Duke Ludovico Sforza.  A drafted letter of application to the duke detailed Leonardo's many useful skills, the majority of which concerned military developments such as "methods for destroying any fortress" and making "unassailable armored chariots."  Peacetime talents such as "guiding water from one place to another" or producing "sculpture in marble, bronze and clay" were mentioned only at the end of the letter.  Nevertheless, one of the most intriguing items is the entry stating, "I have designed extremely light and strong bridges, adapted to be easily carried": in other words, portable bridges.Modern scholars question whether most of the devices mentioned in Leonardo's letter could really have been constructed.  For instance, Krull describes the fact that Leonardo never sent the letter as "a good thing, as it was mostly bluff."  Isaacson, though a bit more charitable, similarly declares that Leonardo's "boasts were aspirational."  Regarding the bridge, however, there is no doubt that the design is workable.According to at least one account, Leonardo really did make such a bridge for Sforza.  More significantly, examples of the bridge have been built and used in contemporary times.  A sketch in one of Leonardo's notebooks illustrates the bridge's construction, which includes different sets of wooden beams cut to specific lengths.  Requiring no nails, ropes, or other fasteners, nor any tools, the bridge can be assembled by a mere handful of people, and even some children could potentially build a small version or model.When the bridge is constructed correctly, each component helps to hold all the other components in place.  The original sketch calls for the beams to be notched so that the pieces of the bridge lock together.  However, in some cases this feature can be omitted, provided the wood is sufficiently rough.  This version of the bridge then stands and bears weight due to friction, gravity, and the physical integrity of the pieces.  In this way, the structure depends entirely on the interplay of physical forces upon its parts.The design is modular and repeatable, meaning that a longer bridge can be made by simply adding another section, with the supports interlocked accordingly.  Given enough materials, time, and manpower, such a bridge could in principle be made to quite a great length.  However, in longer bridges the notches would in fact be needed, because some of the beams would be at steeper angles.Despite the relative ease of constructing the bridge, there is one challenge: building it requires access to both sides of the region to be crossed, as well as the area in between.  Such a consideration might seem obvious in building any bridge, but it can still prove problematic.  If a bridge is meant to help cross a body of water, not all members of the group attempting to cross will receive its benefit, as some would have to stand in the water during the bridge's construction.  Of course, this assumes that it is safe to enter the water in the first place.  Crossing a chasm or a deep pit would pose even greater difficulties, as the bridge's prospective builders would, like the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes, lack a place to stand.  Leonardo may have confronted that problem as well and considered how to make a bridge that was not only portable and freestanding, but constructible in sequence from one end to the other.  Although no evidence exists of such a design in the known pages of his notebooks, many pages have been lost to history and might one day be rediscovered. -The author most likely alludes to Archimedes (Paragraph 6) in order to: