Storytelling appears to be a universal aspect of both past and present

ParthSanghavi

To be honest I don't like the OA but it is the best among the rest.



Storytelling appears to be a universal aspect of both past and present cultures. Comparative study of traditional narratives from widely separated epochs and diverse cultures reveals common themes such as creation, tribal origin, mystical beings and quasi-historical figures, and common story types such as fables and tales in which animals assume human personalities.

The evidence cited above from the study of traditional narratives most supports which one of the following statements?



Understand the stimulus:
- storytelling appears to be universal aspect means storytelling is practiced all over the world . It was practiced in past and in present.
- when we compare narratives(literature) from different regions or tribes around the world we can see a common theme a common origin. The basic idea is almost the same all around the world but with few tweaks of respective tribes...

Inference- question

What can we infer??
We know that narratives of many cultures have same origin same theme ..then is it possible that whatever the narratives are based on are common? For eg: When we smile , our lips tend to move in a upward slope..now in almost all the cultures or areas you visit you will find the same gesture.. no one will make a sad face when they smile( not the normal ones at least)...so this is a universal gesture ...on a similar line if there is same origin same basic theme then is it possible that these cultures have something in common?? Can be anything!! In our case the basic ideas on which the narratives are based
... Now let's dig in

A) Storytellers routinely borrow themes from other cultures.
- "routinely" mean regularly
.do we know storytellers do this routinely?? Nope.. they may just do it once or twice and then build upon the basic idea.

(B) Storytellers have long understood that the narrative is a universal aspect of human culture.
- "long understood" ..we just know about the practice"storytelling" ..we do not know anything about the storytellers per se.. how well they knew what they knew how long they knew...no idea..

(C) Certain human concerns and interests arise in all of the world’s cultures.
- "all" this word is what troubled me.. the rest of the words are actually what I prethought but the word "all" is not really supported here...let's look for another choice ..we won't discard it just yet as rest of the choice can fairly be inferred..

(D) Storytelling was no less important in ancient cultures than it is in modern cultures.
- do we know anything about respective importance of two periods?? It may be less important or it may be more important we absolutely have no data to conclude this..

(E) The best way to understand a culture is to understand what motivates its storytellers.
"Best way" classic GMAT Ans choice... Please take a note of this choice... In many CR questions you will be presented with A WAY to solve a problem but we are nowhere given that this way is the best .the answer choices for such questions include an answer choices worded as "this is the best way" ...as long as we are not given any hint or explicit information about the way being the best we can discard it...the author never tells us that this way is the best.

So out of all , C is the least worst... 90% supported.. nevertheless had this been a MUST BE TRUE question , you wpuld not have encountered this answer choice

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