Question 85·200 Super-Hard SAT Reading Questions·Information and Ideas

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Literary critics have often attributed the relatively standardized spelling in Elara Moss's 1912 poetry collection Tide Ledger—compared with spelling in her drafts—to pressure from her publisher. Moss's letters seem to support this account: she sharply criticizes editors who “erase the coast from coastal speech.” Recently cataloged page proofs, however, complicate it. Corrections in Moss's handwriting replace several regional spellings with standard forms. On the same sheets, she restores regional sentence patterns that a copyeditor had altered. She also leaves regional spellings unchanged in poems spoken by named dockworkers but standardizes them in poems with no identified speaker.

Which choice most logically states an inference supported by the text?

For an inference question, combine all relevant details rather than relying on the passage's opening claim. Pay special attention to evidence that complicates an initial interpretation, and reject choices that introduce an unsupported motive, exaggerate a limited pattern, or ignore evidence pointing in the opposite direction.

Hints

Hint 1
Prioritize direct evidence
Distinguish what critics inferred from the final collection from what Moss's handwritten corrections directly show.
Hint 2
Track both directions
Notice that Moss changed some language toward standard forms but changed other language back toward regional forms.
Hint 3
Compare poem types
Consider why the difference between poems with named speakers and poems without identified speakers matters.

Step-by-step

Step 1
Identify the complication
The letters suggest that Moss opposed editors who removed regional speech, but the proofs show that she personally replaced some regional spellings with standard ones.
Step 2
Compare her different revisions
Moss restored regional sentence patterns while treating regional spelling differently in poems with named speakers and poems without identified speakers. Her revisions therefore do not follow a simple preference for either complete standardization or complete preservation.
Step 3
Draw the supported inference
The contrasting revisions indicate that Moss considered how each regional feature functioned in a particular poem. Thus, her resistance to standardization was selective rather than categorical.

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SAT Reading: Information and IdeasAdvancedCoreDetails and what a text suggests

Question 85·200 Super-Hard SAT Reading Questions·Information and Ideas

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