Question 80·Medium·Text Structure and Purpose
Many art historians maintain that the bold, swirling brushstrokes in painter Maria Gutierrez’s mid-career landscapes resulted from a sudden shift in her emotional state following her relocation to the Andes in 1910. To test this idea, one curator analyzed high-resolution scans of fifty of Gutierrez’s paintings, measuring the thickness and orientation of each visible stroke. The curator discovered that the so-called “dramatic” strokes first appeared in works dated 1908, two years before the move. This finding indicates that factors other than the relocation likely influenced Gutierrez’s stylistic evolution.
Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?
For main-purpose questions, first summarize the passage in your own words in one short sentence: ask, “What is the author trying to do overall?” Pay special attention to the first and last sentences, since they usually introduce the setup (like a common belief or question) and then show how the passage responds (with evidence, a conclusion, or a challenge). Then eliminate choices that focus on only one detail (like a method or a date) or that flip the relationship between ideas (e.g., saying evidence confirms a theory when it actually challenges it), and pick the choice that best matches the passage’s overall structure and goal.
Hints
Focus on the first sentence’s role
Ask yourself: is the first sentence stating a fact, an opinion, or a commonly held belief? How does that set up the rest of the passage?
Look closely at the curator’s findings
Does the new information the curator finds support the art historians’ idea, contradict it, or change how we see it? Pay attention to the dates 1908 and 1910.
Pay attention to the last sentence
What does the phrase “This finding indicates that…” tell you about how the new evidence relates to the earlier explanation?
Eliminate answers that don’t fit the whole passage
Check each answer: does it describe what the entire passage is doing from start to finish, not just one detail like the scanning technique or the dates?
Step-by-step Explanation
Identify the main claim in the first sentence
Look at what the first sentence is doing: it tells us that many art historians maintain a particular explanation — that Gutierrez’s bold, swirling brushstrokes came from a sudden emotional shift after her relocation in 1910. This sets up a widely held explanation about the cause of her stylistic change.
See how the second and third sentences interact with that claim
The second sentence explains that a curator tests this idea using high-resolution scans and measurements of brushstrokes. The third sentence gives the result: those “dramatic” strokes first appeared in 1908, before the 1910 move. So the evidence does not match the original explanation’s timeline.
Notice the conclusion drawn from the evidence
The final sentence says this finding “indicates that factors other than the relocation likely influenced Gutierrez’s stylistic evolution.” That means the curator’s evidence suggests the common explanation (relocation caused the change) is not sufficient or fully correct. The passage is using the curator’s study to challenge or complicate the historians’ usual story.
Match this overall purpose to the best answer choice
Now connect the overall structure — a commonly held explanation is presented, then new evidence is introduced that shows that explanation doesn’t fully work — to the choices. The only option that captures introducing evidence that makes the common explanation less straightforward or less complete is: “To present evidence that complicates a widely held explanation for an artist's stylistic change.”