Exam 4: Critical Analysis & Reasoning Skills

Passage For decades, socialism has been a pervasive bogeyman laying siege at the periphery of the American psyche.  Policies and candidates alike are dismissed out of hand by pronouncing them "socialist," the term sufficing to preclude further consideration.  However, such reactions to any topic ought to give us pause: have we truly judged an idea as unworthy, impractical, or unjust?  Or do we simply demonstrate an unreflective fear of a label?Initial prejudice notwithstanding, legitimate scrutiny is warranted.  Perhaps the gravest threat of socialist programmes to capitalist America is their perceived unfairness-that the rewards of labor or industry will be siphoned from those who rightfully own or generate them and bestowed upon those who did not contribute to their production.Shall we accept without question, however, the assumptions intrinsic to such notions of "rightful" ownership, or more generally, those of fairness itself?  In fact, capitalists and socialists will likely agree on the broad outlines of what fairness entails.  The objection to redistribution of wealth rests on the idea that it takes from the more deserving and gives to the less-if not to the lazy or the layabout.  Given equality of opportunity, why should he who toils be denied the right of harvest?  Why should he who idles be afforded an equal reward?Nonetheless, this claim of initial social equality is precisely what socialism rejects as illusory.  Let us suppose that everyone in society begins life upon equal footing.  None are afforded a greater portion of opportunity, but all are competitors in open tests of skill over time.  By merit, coupled with the vicissitudes of fortune, some ascend to the heights of success, others plummet to the depths of failure, still more inhabit some middle ground.  Equality is shattered, but justly, and from an early uniformity of status rise differences in wealth, garnered according to the abilities and enterprise displayed by each person.As time passes, however, the wealth or destitution of one generation is bequeathed to the next, and then inequality becomes ingrained.  What was before an earned difference of outcome is now an unearned difference of potential.  One individual has an advantage that another lacks-not gained through striving and perseverance but inherited through accident of birth.Such effects only compound over time.  Inevitably, dynasties of wealth accrue by which a few through mere circumstance enjoy economic mastery over the many, who face through the tyranny of chance an undeserved impediment.  The socialist's claim, then, is that complaints against redistribution of wealth fail in light of the very concern for fairness upon which they are founded.This same concern has led various leaders throughout history to implement socialism.  For instance, eleventh-century Chinese statesman Wang An-shih instituted state control of the economy "with a view to succoring the working classes and preventing them from being ground into dust by the rich."  This noble goal met with only temporary success, however, as the system later fell to governmental corruption, private greed, and untimely droughts and floods.Are the dismissive reactions towards socialism then justified?  Not as such.  Capitalism has many virtues, but it is equally liable to exploitation.  In post-industrial America, governmental reforms and regulations on commerce and industry were required to redress the systemic injustices perpetuated by dynastic wealth, as well as to protect the welfare of a multitude bound to wages insufficient to secure life's necessities.  Perhaps the lesson to be drawn is that a "pure" form of either capitalism or socialism will ultimately prove destructive.  Rather than embrace or reject one system from the outset, we must avoid a focus on labels and instead inquire which ideas, and in what combination, best promote the justice whose value we profess. -The author mentions Chinese statesman Wang An-shih to support the idea that:

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? -The author's claims in the passage would be most challenged by which of the following?

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. -Which of the following statements would challenge information presented in the passage?

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 passage author implies that the second version of the Twin Earth thought experiment:

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. -Given the information in the passage, the aesthetic of the tea ceremony promoted by both Shuko and Rikyu is one that:

Passage The 1929 stock market crash in the United States, also known as the Great Crash, affected virtually every American who had a stake in the financial market.  In its wake, a deep economic crisis creating political and social unrest caused the United States government to create a strict financial regulatory system that worked effectively from the 1930s through the 1960s.In the late 1930s, as experts clamored to unravel the source of this financial disaster, British economist John Maynard Keynes organized a dynamic revolution in neoclassical macroeconomics, purporting that free markets could ultimately lead to more adequate employment, rather than the normative "boom and bust" cycle of fiscal recessions and depressions in the United States.  However, Keynes also supported government interference, contending that a reduction in consumer spending due to economic hardship must be adequately supplemented by government expenditure.  The American economics professor Hyman Minsky joined the Keynesian cause two decades later, adding that an accumulation of debt by the national government drives an unstable economy toward crisis, especially in the nongovernment sector.Preceding the Great Crash, the financial market was already unstable, which in hindsight has proven to be one of the many warning signs for emerging crises.  Regrettably, these "red flags" were not characterized until after the collapse.  To prevent another crash as experienced in 1929 and, to a lesser extent in 2008, changes must be made as financial markets expand and become more intricate.  Many economists agree that the mainstream theory of financial markets, which is the foundation of support for the archaic New Financial Architecture (NFA), must be replaced by the realistic economic theories proposed by Keynes and Minsky.  In opposition to singular market ownership, Keynesian economics points to a macroeconomic system wherein a "mixed economy" places the bulk of financial responsibility on households, to be supplemented by governmental spending when necessary.  However, NFA regulations tout the practice of "business as usual," allowing the market to cycle in and out of recessions.Progress has been made toward overall reform, however slowly.  A January 2009 report from the Comptroller General's Office to the United States Congress was delivered in hopes of shaping potential regulatory reform efforts.  These efforts "seek to: 1) describe how regulation has evolved in banking, securities, thrifts, credit unions, futures, insurance, secondary mortgage markets and other important areas; (2) define several key changes in the financial sector in recent decades that have highlighted significant limitations and gaps in the existing regulatory system; and (3) present an evaluation framework that can be used by Congress and others to restructure regulatory reform."Also, there must be a broad political mandate in support of serious financial regulatory reforms.  For too long, monetary elites such as lobbyists, private bankers, and commercial investors have controlled a potentially fragile financial system.  Regulation is needed for remedying market failure and protecting the economy from an imminent collapse.These conjectures are meant to replace fragmented and complex arrangements of federal and state regulations-put into place over the past 150 years-that have not kept pace with major developments in financial markets and commercial products in recent decades.  Without safeguards in place, the American financial market will face a continuous ebb and flow of prosperity and may be forced to face another crisis. -According to the passage, a Keynesian economist would recommend which of the following as an acceptable response during an economic crisis?

Passage Throughout the twentieth century, the performer-spectator dynamic has been challenged both in artistic practice and from a theoretical perspective.  Contextual Futurists, nonsensical Dadaists, and the surreal avant-garde theatrical experiments upended the conventional notion of passive spectatorship, paving the way for performers to disrupt the invisible wall between the artist and audience altogether.  Most scholarly attention, however, has traditionally been directed toward one-way theatrical practices by which performers engage, transform, and heighten the bodily state of the audience through a framework of communal "felt-experience," and not vice versa.The actors on stage are ostensibly the central object of attention, yet their communication with those in attendance is not solely a one-way discourse.  After the curtain falls at the end of a performance, it is common to hear professional performers commentate on audience reaction:  sometimes the spectators were "attuned"; at other times they seemed "aloof."  Occasionally, performers feel as if they "captured" the audience; at other times, they perceive that they "lost touch" with the viewers entirely.  One could say that this jargon is merely an oversimplified and closed communication that reduces the true complexity and aesthetic dimensions of the theater experience.Nevertheless, performers are ultimately the vessels responsible for detecting and absorbing the moods, attitudes, and emotions of individuals, and these aspects are vital to the apparent success or failure of the performative process.  One day, actors might find the audience energetic, welcoming, and appreciative; the next day, they may find a stiff, critical, and disconnected crowd, even when performing in the same production with unchanged levels of enthusiasm.  In some instances, a single audience may be unmoved, regardless of how well a show is performed.  In concert with this insight, the language used by artists from across the globe to portray such audience encounters is notably similar.  Their predilection for tactile idiomatic expressions when describing the performer-audience connection is perfectly captured in these remarks from a well-known stage actor:"The level of attention the audience gives to what is happening on stage provides a certain quality of stillness that makes it possible for a performer to know whether the audience is attuned or not.  However, for the audience to be 'with' the performer, it must embrace a state of tension and immerse itself in the profundity of the performance…it's a very 'tangible' moment-it's all I can find as a word."Because the audience is the proclaimed foundation of a theatrical event, a staged play aims to affect the audience, usually by "capturing" the viewers in some poignant manner.  According to this paradigm, there can be no performance without an audience.  Despite this, the presence of spectators does not guarantee that a meaningful emotional, or affective, exchange will transpire.  Such collective encounters in a shared space and time present only the possibility-for connection or disconnection; and, accordingly, an audience member must be physically present and willing to be affectively influenced.The audience serves an integral function in the performance:  it activates, intensifies, and amplifies the circulation of emotional affect in a communal social space.  Individually and collectively, each spectator is able to participate in the intrinsically variable theatrical plot.  Affect is thereby experienced simultaneously through action, thought, and perception by both the artist and the audience.  This mutual "transmission of affect" induces a corporeal sentiment that ultimately resonates as a palpably emotional atmosphere.  Entertainers can only know if the audience is "present" to the degree that they also embrace the mutual tension of the experience.  In this way, the performer dutifully influences the audience, and the audience, in essence, "re-affects" the stage. Adapted from Pais, A, Affective Resonance as the Function of the Audience. Published 2016. -Based on information found in the passage, which of the following would one LEAST expect to have observed in the theater throughout the twentieth century?

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." -As it is used by the passage author, the term simulacrum is most aptly defined as:

Passage Of the myriad problems facing translators, perhaps the most significant lies in the tension between what a text conveys and the words used to convey it.  Strict fidelity to the specific words of a text often fails to capture the full sense of its meaning.  Beyond this loss of meaning can also arise a loss of artistry and structural features which often cannot be replicated.For instance, a fully evocative rendering of the 119th Psalm seems unattainable.  Comprising twenty-two strophes of eight lines each, the one hundred and seventy-six verses do appear somewhat poetic in translation.  But in the original Hebrew the Psalm is an acrostic: the verses of the first strophe all begin with the letter Aleph, those of the second with Beth, and so on, with Tav, the last letter of the alphabet, commencing the final eight verses.  The reader of a translation would, understandably, be ignorant of this fact.  While this does not affect the essential meaning of the verses, it does affect their character-something is lost from the original in its non-native presentation.  Although there have been occasional attempts to mimic this structure in other languages, they have all been unsuccessful.  The tortured and unnatural wording that results proves the wisdom of most translators in prioritizing readability.  Nevertheless, the Psalmist wrote with a particular purpose that is left untransmitted.  The sacrifice of the acrostic, however necessary, is regrettable.Another concern is what might be called translational multiplicity.  Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges famously remarked: "The Quixote, due to my congenital practice of Spanish, is a uniform monument, with no other variations… the Odyssey, thanks to my opportune ignorance of Greek, is an international bookstore of works in prose and verse."  To speak of "the" Odyssey, or more generally, "the" text of any work, runs headlong into the reality that for translated works, "the text" is not a unitary entity but a collection of candidates.  Thus, a perennial difficulty of translation is conveyed through Borges' idiosyncratic presentation.  Or is it?  For Borges' remarks are elsewhere listed as: "Since Spanish is my native language, the Quixote is to me an unchanging monument, with no possible variations….  But the Odyssey, thanks to my opportune ignorance of Greek, is a library of works in prose and verse."  That we might ask which of these translations more closely represents his actual words is a fact that Borges would likely have found amusing.Considerations of this sort are magnified when one approaches the writings not only of individual authors, but of past civilizations.  Despite being one of the world's foremost sinologists, the late D. C. Lau was convinced that none of us truly understand classical Chinese.  The sentiment was no mere expression of modesty; fellow scholar Roger Ames described Lau as "[h]aving assimilated the classical corpus through a lifetime of careful study and reflection."  Rather, Lau was keenly aware of the difficult truth that the fluidity of language and culture over time can shroud the works of the ancients in obscurities that may be inscrutable to even their most passionately curious descendants.Modern works may also be altered, however, and sometimes through more subtle types of translation.  The book known as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in England was changed to refer instead to the "Sorcerer's Stone" in the United States, reportedly due to a belief that the original title would be unpalatable to an American audience.  While that depressing assumption may indeed have been correct, the change removes a titular connection to a pre-existing myth.  The generic fantasy idea with which it is replaced thus fails to embody the full character of the original work. -The author probably mentions the proto-stylites in order to show that:

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 central idea of the passage is that, in Baudrillard's view:

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." -According to the passage, some experts maintain that the erosion on the Sphinx was caused by rainfall.  What is the primary reason for that belief?

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." -By mentioning the title of Christie's story "The Case of the Missing Lady" in Paragraph 4, the passage author is most likely:

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. -Based on information in the passage, it can be inferred that the funding a school receives depends largely on the:

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. -Suppose a spectator on the observation platform of Barker's rotunda is quickly transported to the observation tower of Bentham's Panopticon.  This spectator who was appreciating the panorama then serves as the watchman, tasked with looking out on all the surrounding cells of the circular prison building.  What best describes his role from the perspective of the prisoners?

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. -Which of the following descriptions best represents the type of artist the modernist poets were?

Passage The destruction of the White House was not the fault of its original builders.  When James Hoban designed a presidential palace to reflect George Washington's vision for a residence in 1792, he upheld the best architectural standards of his day.  By the time of the 1948-1952 renovation, however, there were plenty of people to blame for the White House's condition.  A combination of poor planning, carelessness, and neglect throughout the intervening years caused a catastrophic deterioration.Robert Klara recounts a history of changes to the White House that gradually compromised its structural integrity, beginning as far back as 1833 when Andrew Jackson had pipes installed for running water.  Subsequent presidents added modern conveniences in pace with technological developments: gas lighting for James Polk, a telephone system for Rutherford Hayes, and air conditioning for Chester Arthur, among others.  None of these advancements could have been anticipated by Hoban, and they had the dual effect of increasing the load borne by the house while decreasing its ability to bear that burden.  The builders responsible for the many additions performed "careless and foolish maneuvers that a first-year architecture student would never have made," such as installing doorways in load-bearing walls or destroying the keystones of a brick arch.  Deep cuts were carved into crucial support beams to make room for pipes, wiring, and air ducts, weakening the beams and concentrating weight that would otherwise have been more evenly distributed.By the turn of the twentieth century, the structural failings of the White House had become difficult to ignore.  The building was likely beyond saving at that point, and President Roosevelt didn't help matters by allowing architect Charles McKim only four months to make repairs.  McKim reinforced the second floor as well as he could within the time allotted, but his efforts only delayed the inevitable.  In 1925, Calvin Coolidge scoffed at reports that the White House roof was unsafe until "[a] chunk of it broke off and bonked President Coolidge in the head."  Poetic justice notwithstanding, the repairs to which he only then begrudgingly agreed had a disastrous side effect: the weight of the roof was shifted away from the stronger outer walls to the weaker inner ones, causing enormous structural strain.The need to reconstruct the mansion reached a breaking point during the Harry Truman administration.  Walls continued to sink and pull away from ceilings; heavy chandeliers swung dangerously from movement on the floor above them; the entire East Room required scaffolding to prevent the collapse of its ceiling.  More dramatic incidents involved daughter Margaret Truman's piano.  Not only did the floor of her sitting room begin to sway up and down while she was playing a duet with a friend, but no steps were taken to move the piano away from the weak floor afterward.  Predictably, White House residents and staff were later horrified when one of the piano's legs crashed through, puncturing the overtaxed wood and sending debris cascading into the room below.  As for Margaret, Klara relates how she called the Steinway company to ask for "a man who could come over to rescue a piano."That event was the crescendo in a long string of architectural warnings.  Ultimately, there was little choice but to tear down and rebuild the White House.  The exterior façade was preserved, as were a few of the interior's furnishings and decorations.  Still, the extensive transformation left many feeling that the White House was no longer the same. -The author most likely mentions the story about Calvin Coolidge (Paragraph 3) in order to:

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 "bottom up" approach to analyzing artwork recommended in Paragraph 3 would primarily involve 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." -Which of the following conclusions is supported by passage evidence?

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. -By creating a "substitious" character in the novel Jingo, Pratchett highlights the idea that:

Passage Of the myriad problems facing translators, perhaps the most significant lies in the tension between what a text conveys and the words used to convey it.  Strict fidelity to the specific words of a text often fails to capture the full sense of its meaning.  Beyond this loss of meaning can also arise a loss of artistry and structural features which often cannot be replicated.For instance, a fully evocative rendering of the 119th Psalm seems unattainable.  Comprising twenty-two strophes of eight lines each, the one hundred and seventy-six verses do appear somewhat poetic in translation.  But in the original Hebrew the Psalm is an acrostic: the verses of the first strophe all begin with the letter Aleph, those of the second with Beth, and so on, with Tav, the last letter of the alphabet, commencing the final eight verses.  The reader of a translation would, understandably, be ignorant of this fact.  While this does not affect the essential meaning of the verses, it does affect their character-something is lost from the original in its non-native presentation.  Although there have been occasional attempts to mimic this structure in other languages, they have all been unsuccessful.  The tortured and unnatural wording that results proves the wisdom of most translators in prioritizing readability.  Nevertheless, the Psalmist wrote with a particular purpose that is left untransmitted.  The sacrifice of the acrostic, however necessary, is regrettable.Another concern is what might be called translational multiplicity.  Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges famously remarked: "The Quixote, due to my congenital practice of Spanish, is a uniform monument, with no other variations… the Odyssey, thanks to my opportune ignorance of Greek, is an international bookstore of works in prose and verse."  To speak of "the" Odyssey, or more generally, "the" text of any work, runs headlong into the reality that for translated works, "the text" is not a unitary entity but a collection of candidates.  Thus, a perennial difficulty of translation is conveyed through Borges' idiosyncratic presentation.  Or is it?  For Borges' remarks are elsewhere listed as: "Since Spanish is my native language, the Quixote is to me an unchanging monument, with no possible variations….  But the Odyssey, thanks to my opportune ignorance of Greek, is a library of works in prose and verse."  That we might ask which of these translations more closely represents his actual words is a fact that Borges would likely have found amusing.Considerations of this sort are magnified when one approaches the writings not only of individual authors, but of past civilizations.  Despite being one of the world's foremost sinologists, the late D. C. Lau was convinced that none of us truly understand classical Chinese.  The sentiment was no mere expression of modesty; fellow scholar Roger Ames described Lau as "[h]aving assimilated the classical corpus through a lifetime of careful study and reflection."  Rather, Lau was keenly aware of the difficult truth that the fluidity of language and culture over time can shroud the works of the ancients in obscurities that may be inscrutable to even their most passionately curious descendants.Modern works may also be altered, however, and sometimes through more subtle types of translation.  The book known as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in England was changed to refer instead to the "Sorcerer's Stone" in the United States, reportedly due to a belief that the original title would be unpalatable to an American audience.  While that depressing assumption may indeed have been correct, the change removes a titular connection to a pre-existing myth.  The generic fantasy idea with which it is replaced thus fails to embody the full character of the original work. -Based on information in the passage, which of the following examples of medieval writings would likely be the most difficult to successfully translate?