Free SAT Practice Question

Question 1 of 1
ID: SAT-RW-CS-038
Section: SAT Reading & Writing (RW) – Craft and Structure
Topic: Text Structure and Purpose
Difficulty level: Easy

Practice Mode: Single selected Question » Back to Overview

For most of the nineteenth century, botanical illustration was treated as a craft subordinate to written description: the drawing merely decorated the naturalist’s text. The work of Marianne North unsettled that hierarchy. Painting plants in their native habitats rather than as isolated specimens, she made the image itself carry information a paragraph could not — how a vine gripped its host, how light fell through a canopy — so that later botanists consulted her canvases as evidence, not ornament.

Which choice best describes the main purpose of the text?

ATo trace the complete history of botanical illustration from decorative craft to modern science.

BTo argue that skilled illustration makes written description unnecessary in botany.

CTo contrast two competing schools of botanical painting.

DTo show how one artist changed illustration’s standing from decoration to evidence.

» Quit