[John’s GRE Prep.] Reading

다음은 GRE 독해 문제이다. 

The condition of scholarship devoted to the history of women in photography is confounding. Recent years have witnessed the posthumous inflation of the role of the hobbyist Alice Austen into that of a pioneering documentarian while dozens of notable senior figures ― Marion Palfi, whose photographs of civil-rights activities in the south served as early evidence of the need for protective legislation, to name one ― received scant attention from scholars. And, while Naomi Rosenblum’s synoptic history of Women Photographers covers the subject through 1920 in a generally useful fashion, once she reaches the 1920’s, when the venues, forms, applications, and movements of the medium expanded exponentially, she resorts to an increasingly terse listing of unfamiliar names, with approaches and careers summarized in a sentence or two.

For the following question, consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.

Which of the following statements about Marion Palfi is supported by the passage?

A. Marion Palfi’s photographs would have received greater recognition from historians had her work been done in an era when most aspects of photography were static rather than in a state of transition.
B. Alice Austen has achieved greater notoriety than has Marion Palfi primarily because the subjects that Austen photographed were more familiar to her contemporaries.
C. In addition to providing a record of certain historical events, Marion Palfi’s photographs played a role in subsequent events.

위 문제는 답이 한 개, 두 개 아니면 세 개도 될 수 있기 때문에 어렵다. 그냥 답 한 개만 고르는 것과 상당한 차이가 있다. 그만큼 문제를 잘 이해해야 하기 때문이다. 두 번째 문장을 읽어보면 Marion Palfi 는 civil-rights activities 에 참여했을 뿐 아니라 served as early evidence of the need for protective legislation 라는 말도 있다. 문맥상 civil-rights 에 관한 보호법의 필요성을 일찍이 제기 했다고 볼 수 있다. 그러므로 그녀는 사진을 찍었을 뿐 아니라 그녀의 사진으로 법이 만들어지는데 역할을 했다고 볼 수 있다. 그러므로 답은 딱 한 개. C 이다. 

In the context in which it appears, “inflation” (line 2) most nearly means

A. exaggeration
B. acquisition
C. evaluation
D. distortion
E. attenuation

Inflation 하면 인플레이션이 생겨나고 부풀린다는 느낌이 온다. 즉 과장됐다는 말이다. 그러므로 답은 A 이다 .