A question about two texts tests how one author would answer a claim in the other. Read the question to find who answers whom, and use the underlining to narrow what you need to test. Put that claim and the other text's evidence in a few words. Ask whether the evidence challenges the claim, limits it, or takes it further. The response must give the author's own reason, not a guess about the shared topic.
Hints
- Hint 1
The question asks Text 2's author to answer the underlined claim, not everything in Text 1. What does that claim say came first?
- Hint 2
Test the underlined claim against Text 2. What does Text 2's example tell you about the claim that Ríos's painting was first?
Step-by-step
Test the claim of being first
Step 1Pin down the underlined claim
Text 1 calls Ríos's work the first painting to put a factory smokestack at the composition's center. What does Text 2's author need to test? We need to test the claim of being first in Valencia, which means checking both the 1864 date and where the smokestack sits.
- Step 2
Find Text 2's view and reason
What does Text 2 say about Clara Noguera's 1859 painting? It's another Valencian work, dated five years before Ríos's, and a tall smokestack rises from the middle of the canvas. Because this earlier work also has a smokestack in the middle, Text 2 would reject the claim of being first.
- Step 3
Check the response's reason
The sentence about Foundry at Dawn challenges first with its earlier date. Its centered smokestack also matches a factory smokestack at the composition's center, so this response tests both parts of the claim with Text 2's own evidence. Choice C.