Verbal Reasoning

Directions: Read the following MCAT-styled passage and try to articulate the main idea to yourself. Read actively and critically. In a real MCAT situation, you'll need to be time-conscious while you read. For now, just go at whatever pace feels comfortable to you.

Sample Passage

In 1948, Look magazine polled America's art critics and major artists, among them Edward Hopper, Stuart Davis, and Charles Burchfield, for a consensus on the creative spirit who could be pronounced the best of the age. It is a fair measure of the art establishment's limited attention span that a generation after John Marin was crowned prince of painters by his peers, his name had begun to fade. New styles raced in to seize the interest of the gallery and museum worlds; fashion embraced Abstract Expressionism, then thrilled to the distancing imagery of Pop Art and later, for about five minutes, went gaga over a frail phenomenon labeled Op Art. To be sure, Marin's death in 1953 was the occasion for lavish obituary tributes. But mention him today to a reasonably literate American or cultured, well-traveled European and, likely as not, the response will be a puzzled stare.

That is not only odd but hard to understand. Marin's legacy embraces more than 3,000 works, many of them memorable. There are prime etchings, splendid if demanding oils and, in the main, watercolors--2,500 of them, amazing in color, design and complexity. He seemed to have set down everything in transport of excitement, as if he were recording themes for a fevered gavotte. Indeed, he once wrote of the acts of drawing and painting as a "sort of mad wonder dancing."

Everything that came from Marin's loving hand radiated spontaneity. Here, it appeared, was a natural, creative spirit, a lucky man who was freed, rather than constrained, by his magnanimous imagination. In truth, hardly anything Marin turned out was unrehearsed. The paintings which hinted at the impetuosity of an artist struggling to convey the "warring, pushing, pulling forces" of his surroundings were, as often as not, studio works. Even his letters, with their blithe disregard for punctuation, were discovered to be the results of many drafts.

As a husband and father, Marin lived a life of singular regularity. He had one wife and, as far as anyone knows, no extramarital entanglements. When he put away his paints at the end of his working day, Marin became a man of simple, harmless pleasures. Late pictures show a wiry-looking figure with a long, thin Yankee nose, the parched skin of a farmer, and a humorous mouth that often held a cigarette. No one ever saw him down more drink than was good for his speech or balance. His idea of fun was a good game of billiards.

The contrast between the art and the man who made it was extreme, fascinating, and a trifle baffling. Marin's pictures were daring, the work of a sophisticated eye, an unfailing imagination, a virtuoso hand; some of them verge on elegant abstraction, although he looked down on abstract art. He hated efforts to interpret his art--or for that matter anyone else's. The attitude is not uncommon to artists, particularly American artists, but Marin's distrust of the critical and academic establishments verged on the fanatic. "Intellectuals," he once pronounced, "have in their make-up a form of Nazism."

Adapted from Helen Dudar, "The Old Fashioned Modernism of John Marin," Smithsonian. vol. 20, no. 11 (Feb. 1990), pp. 2052-63.

Sample Questions

1. The main point of the passage is to:

(A) explain why John Marin's work was virtually forgotten after his death.

(B) consider the contrast between Marin's artistic style and his personal life and habits.

(C) argue that the art establishment was unable to reach a consensus on the "best of the age" because of its limited attention span.

(D) suggest that Marin's vivacious watercolors were a reaction against Nazism in the art world.

2. Of the following, the author of the passage is most likely:

(A) a contemporary painter

(B) a magazine art critic

(C) an investigative reporter

(D) a museum curator

3. The author refers to Op Art in order to:

(A) place Marin's art within a specific category or genre.

(B) identify the origins of Marin's artistic style.

(C) emphasize the fleeting popularity of artistic styles.

(D) compare Marin's stylistic simplicity with later psychedelic trends.

4. The passage discusses all of the following aspects of Marin's life EXCEPT his:

(A) political beliefs

(B) physical appearance

(C) artistic style

(D) family life