SAT Reading & Writing · Command of Evidence (textual)
A biographer claims that a famous novelist's reclusive later years were driven entirely by a fear of public criticism following a poorly…
A biographer claims that a famous novelist's reclusive later years were driven entirely by a fear of public criticism following a poorly received novel. Which finding would most directly complicate this claim?
Answer and explanation
Answer: D: The novelist's private letters from the recluse period discuss several reasons for withdrawing from public life, including chronic illness and a preference for uninterrupted writing time, with no…
The biographer's claim requires public criticism to be the driving, and implicitly sole, cause of the withdrawal, and D directly complicates that by showing the novelist's own private reasoning cited other factors entirely, without ever mentioning the criticism. A introduces a timing gap that could support doubt but doesn't offer the novelist's own competing explanation the way D does. C and B are background facts about sales and continued writing that don't address the claimed motivation.
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