The Function of Criticism at the Current Time

The writer uses the word "data" to encompass all of the following except:

• materials
• a current of ideas
• creative force
• a fresh thought

In context, the word "sanguine" in line 3 most nearly means:

• optimistic
• inevitable
• doubtful
• infallible

The primary purpose of the passage as a whole is to:

• argue for the inability of reading to compensate for a lack in fresh
  thought
• argue for the importance of criticism for literature in a time that may 
  lack a "national glow of life"
• argue that Wordsworth is one of the misinformed poets of the epoch
• argue that the literature of Germany is superior to the literature of
  England

In line 30, the pronoun "it" refers to:

• a world of knowledge
• material
• data
• state of things

The purpose of the sentence "But to speak of books and reading may easily lead to a misunderstanding here,' at the beginning of paragraph 2, is to:
I. provide a transition from the previous paragraph into the current one
 II. acknowledge and refute possible counterargument
 III. provide an example of the writer’s major claim

• I
• II
• I and II
• I, II, and III

The phrase "a current of ideas" is an example of:

• simile
• metaphor
• metonymy
• synechdoche

The style of the passage can best be characterized by its use of all of the  following except:

• parallel structure
• examples
• complicated syntax
• sensory images

The tone of the passage can best be described as:

• confident and polemical
• sardonic and irreverant
• detached and aloof
• somber and grave

The major claim of the passage is stated in which of the following lines?
 I. "It has long seemed to me that the burst of creative activity in our literature, through the first quarter of this century, had about it in fact something premature; and that from this cause its productions are doomed, most of them, in spite of the sanguine hopes which accompanied and do still accompany them, to prove hardly more lasting than the productions of far less splendid epochs."
 II. "In other words, the English poetry of the first quarter of this century, with plenty of energy, plenty of creative force, did not know enough."
 III. "In the England of the first quarter of this century there was neither a national glow of life and thought, such as we had in the age of  Elizabeth, nor yet a culture and a force of learning and criticism such as were to be found in Germany."

• I
• II
• I and II
• I, II, and III

The primary mode of composition of the passage as a whole is:

• narration
• description
• comparison and contrast
• argument