Extended Debate Concerning the Exact Point of Origin of Individual Folktales told by Afro-American Slaves GMAT Reading Comprehension

Reading Passage Question

Extended debate concerning the exact point of origin of individual folktales told by Afro-American slaves has unfortunately taken precedence over analysis of the tales’ meaning and function. Cultural continuities with Africa were not dependent on importation and perpetuation of specific folktales in their pristine form. It is in the place that tales occupied in the lives of the slaves and in the meaning slaves derived from them that the clearest resemblances to African tradition can be found. Afro-American slaves did not borrow tales indiscriminately from the Whites among whom they lived. Black people were most influenced by those Euro-American tales whose functional meaning and aesthetic appeal had the greatest similarity to the tales with deep roots in their ancestral homeland. Regardless of where slave tales came from, the essential point is that, with respect to language, delivery, details of characterization, and plot, slaves quickly made them their own.

“Extended debate concerning the exact point of origin of individual folktales told by Afro-American slaves” - is a GMAT reading comprehension passage with answers. Candidates need a strong knowledge of English GMAT reading comprehension.

This GMAT Reading Comprehension consists of 4 comprehension questions. The GMAT Reading Comprehension questions are designed for the purpose of testing candidates’ abilities in understanding, analyzing, and applying information or concepts. Candidates can actively prepare with the help of GMAT Reading Comprehension Practice Questions.

Solution and Explanation

Question 1
The author claims that most studies of folktales told by Afro-American slaves are inadequate because the studies

1. fail to recognize any possible Euro-American influence on the folktales
2. do not pay enough attention to the features of a folktale that best reveal an African influence
3. overestimate the number of folktales brought from Africa by the slaves
4. do not consider the fact that a folktale can be changed as it is retold many times
5. oversimplify the diverse and complex traditions of the slaves ancestral homeland

Question 2
The author’s main purpose is to

1. create a new field of study
2. discredit an existing field of study
3. change the focus of a field of study
4. transplant scholarly techniques from one field of study to another
5. restrict the scope of a burgeoning new field of study

Question 3
The passage suggests that the author would regard which of the following areas of inquiry as most likely to reveal the slaves’ cultural continuities with Africa?

1. The means by which Blacks disseminated their folktales in nineteenth-century America
2. Specific regional differences in the styles of delivery used by the slaves in telling folktales
3. The functional meaning of Black folktales in the lives of White children raised by slave
4. The specific way the slaves used folktales to impart moral teaching to their children
5. The complexities of plot that appear most frequently in the slaves’ tales

Question 4
Which of the following techniques is used by the author in developing the argument in the passage?

1. Giving a cliché a new meaning
2. Pointedly refusing to define key terms
3. Alternately presenting generalities and concrete details
4. Concluding the passage with a restatement of the first point made in the passage
5. Juxtaposing statements of what is not the case and statements of what is the case

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