Question 128·200 Super-Hard SAT Reading Questions·Expression of Ideas
While researching a topic, a student has taken the following notes:
- Critics have argued that the recurring bell imagery in Leda Marr's 1922 poetry collection The Narrow Sea derives from her memories of municipal warning bells sounded during 1917 air raids.
- Marr's 1917 diary describes those warning bells as "metal dividing the night."
- Drafts from 1919 use drum imagery in three passages that appear in poems about wartime separation.
- In 1920, Marr moved to an apartment beside a harbor clock tower.
- Soon afterward, she wrote that the tower's hourly chimes "have entered every poem I revise."
- Manuscripts from 1921 show that Marr replaced the drums with bells in all three passages; two poems that she did not revise after moving retain their drum imagery.
- In the final collection, the bell passages remain in poems about wartime separation.
The student wants to evaluate the critics' account of Marr's bell imagery. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?
For rhetorical synthesis questions that ask you to evaluate an account, identify the account's exact claim and sort the notes into supporting, complicating, and irrelevant evidence. Prefer the choice that accurately calibrates its conclusion rather than converting an association or chronology into proof.
Hints
Separate two questions
Consider both what the bells may evoke in the finished poems and what may have prompted the poet to introduce them.
Trace the revisions
Compare the imagery in the early drafts with the imagery adopted after the poet moved.
Avoid absolute conclusions
Look for a choice that accounts for evidence both supporting and complicating the critics' interpretation.
Step-by-step Explanation
Identify the critics' claim
The critics attribute Marr's bell imagery to her memories of warning bells sounded during wartime air raids. Evaluating that account requires considering both evidence that supports an air-raid connection and evidence pointing to another source.
Assess the supporting evidence
Marr's wartime diary contains a striking description of warning bells, and the final bell passages occur in poems about wartime separation. These facts make a thematic association between the bells and the air raids plausible.
Examine the revision history
The 1919 drafts use drums rather than bells. Marr replaced the drums only after moving beside a clock tower and writing that its chimes had entered the poems she revised. This sequence suggests that the harbor chimes prompted her specific choice of bell imagery.
Calibrate the conclusion
The evidence does not make the wartime interpretation irrelevant, but it does complicate the claim that air-raid memories were the immediate source of the bells. Choice C accurately preserves this distinction.