It has become something of a truism in folklore studies that until rec

1. Which one of the following best describes the main point of the passage?

Difficulty Level: 600

Explanation

(A) Read the lines 5-8 of first paragraph: "However, since the early 1970s, folklore studies have begun to regard folk performers as people of creativity who are as worthy of attention as are artists who transmit their ideas in writing.", folk performers, as opposed to just their works, began to get attention from the early 1970s. The increased emphasis on women, the text implies, is an even more recent phenomenon. Besides, the precise date when scholars first began to give attention to the contributions of women folklorists is a mere detail.

(B) nicely sums up the gist of Paragraph 4, but certainly doesn’t qualify as the passage’s main point.

(C) Read the second half of paragraph 3

Though interested in the problems of repertoire analysis, Pentikäinen gives considerable attention to the details of Tokalo’s life and cultural background, so that a full picture of a woman and her folklore emerges. Another notable work is Roger Abraham’s book, which presents a very clear picture of the significance of traditional singing in the life of noted ballad singer Almeda Riddle. Unfortunately, unlike Pentikäinen’s study, Abraham’s study contains little repertoire analysis.

These lines indicate that recent works about women folklorists don’t focus primarily on the “the problems of repertoire analysis.”

(D) The text claims that folklore studies have shifted from an almost exclusive emphasis on folklore itself to an interest in the people who transmit it. (D) makes a quite different claim.

Answer: E