SAT Reading Practice Test Questions- Social Science based Set 3

Questions 19-24 are based on the following passage.

The following passage is an excerpt from a book about twentieth-century developments in art. The author refers here to the modem art that emerged shortly after the turn of the century. Many people found this art shocking.

If the new art is not accessible to everyone, which certainly seems to be the case, this implies that its impulses are not of a generically human kind. It is an art not for people in general but for a special class who may not be Line 5 better but who are evidently different. Before we go further, one point must be clarified. What is it that the majority of people call aesthetic pleasure? What happens in their minds when they “like” a work of art; for example, a play? The answer is easy. They like a Line 10 play when they become interested in the human destinies that are represented, when the love and hatred, the joys and sorrows of the dramatic personages so move them that they participate in it all as though it were happening in real life. And they call a work “good” if it succeeds in creating the Line 15 illusion necessary to make the imaginary personages appear like living persons. In poetry the majority of people seek the passion and pain of the human being behind the poet. Paintings attract them if they find in them figures of men or women it would be interesting to meet. Line 20 It thus appears that to the majority of people aesthetic pleasure means a state of mind that is essentially indistinguishable from their ordinary behavior. It differs merely in accidental qualities, being perhaps less utilitarian, more intense, and free from painful consequences. But the Line 25 object toward which their attention and, consequently, all their other mental activities are directed is the same as in daily life: people and passions. When forced to consider artistic forms proper-for example, in some surrealistic or abstract art-most people will only tolerate them if they do Line 30 not interfere with their perception of human forms and fates. As soon as purely aesthetic elements predominate and the story of John and Susie grows elusive, most people feel out of their depth and are at a loss as to what to make of the scene, the book, or the painting. A work of art Line 35 vanishes from sight for a beholder who seeks in that work of art nothing but the moving fate of John and Susie or Tristan and Isolde.* Unaccustomed to behaving in any mode except the practical one in which feelings are aroused and emotional involvement ensues, most people are unsure Line 40 how to respond to a work that does not invite sentimental intervention. Now this is a point that has to be made perfectly clear. Neither grieving nor rejoicing at such human destinies as those presented by a work of art begins to define true Line 45 artistic pleasure; indeed, preoccupation with the human content of the work is in principle incompatible with aesthetic enjoyment proper.
* Tristan and Isolde were star-crossed lovers in a medieval romance.

19. The passage is primarily concerned with the

1. lives artists lead as opposed to the ones they imagine
2. emotional impact of a painting’s subject matter
3. nature of the pleasure that most people find in a work of art
4. wide variety of responses that audiences have to different works of art
5. contrast between the formal elements of the new art and those of the old

20. As used in line 18, “figures” most nearly means

1. crude images
2. abstractions
3. representations
4. numbers
5. famous persons

21. It is most likely that “the story of John and Susie” (line 32) refers to

1. a fictional work that the author will proceed to critique
2. a typical narrative of interpersonal relationships
3. an account of an affair in the form of a mystery
4. a legendary couple that has fascinated artists through the ages
5. a cryptic chronicle of renowned historical personages

22. The author suggests that the majority of people resist modem art because they

1. consider modem artists to be elitist
2. are too influenced by critics to view the art on its own merits
3. are annoyed by its social message
4. find in it little of human interest to engage them
5. find it too difficult to guess at the artist’s source of inspiration

23. The author’s attitude towards majority of people can best be described as

1. genuinely puzzled
2. aggressively hostile
3. solemnly respectful
4. generally indifferent
5. condescendingly tolerant

24. The author’s assumption in the final paragraph (lines 42-47) is that

1. aesthetic pleasure is a response to the purely artistic elements in a work of art
2. aesthetic enjoyment of a work of art must focus on the artist’s intentions as much as on the artist’s actual accomplishments
3. responses to a work of art vary and cannot be easily defined
4. the evocation of emotional responses by a traditional work of art depends on the moral conventions of the artist’s society
5. the majority of people trying to interpret a work of art will concentrate on the artistic technique