RC Question 22 Explanation
DISCUSSION: Lines 16-20 explain Dostoyevsky’s views on reality. There is no single reality, everything depends on how each person perceives things.
___________
- CORRECT. This is directly supported by lines 16-20.
- The second paragraph never mentions politics. Politics is only mentioned on lines 26-27, where Dostoyevsky scorns them as unimportant.
- Lines 10-12 make clear that Dostoyevsky was a realist. This answer gives the view of the critics from lines 3-4; they’re mostly irrelevant to the passage.
- Realists cared about creating a new society (lines 5-9). Dostoyevsky took a different view. He was more concerned about artistic merit (paragraph 3) than politics (lines 26-27).
- Lines 10 and lines 23-25 show that Dostoyevsky did use reality as a source. He just mixed it with the fantastic.
Doesn’t this double negative (“not independent”) make it the opposite of what Dostoyevsky said? Dovstoyevsky thought that reality is NOT DEPENDENT on the experiences of individuals — right?
In the lines I cited: [Dostoyevsky thinks] “reality was necessarily shaped by the experiences of individuals”
So Dostoyesvky disagrees with the radicals, who argued that an independent reality exists. Dostoyevsky thinks reality exists only in relation to how individuals experience it.