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Craft and StructureHardFunction of a quotation in a scholarship text

Craft and Structure practice question

Scholars once treated the recurring melodies across Florence Price's works as signs of haste. Her correspondence suggests deliberate craft instead: reusing a theme in a new setting was, for Price, a way of testing what the material could become. 'I plant the same seed in different soil,' she wrote to a colleague, 'to learn what else it knows how to be.'

Which choice best describes the function of the quotation in the text as a whole?

  1. A. It supplies firsthand testimony for the claim that the practice was deliberate.Correct
  2. B. It introduces a view that the text goes on to refute.
  3. C. It illustrates how historians have misread the composer's intentions.
  4. D. It shifts the text's focus from the composer to her audiences.

Answer: A. It supplies firsthand testimony for the claim that the practice was deliberate.

The text claims the self-borrowing was a conscious strategy, and the composer's own letter — 'I plant the same seed in different soil' — is direct evidence of that intent.

Why the other answers are wrong

B. It introduces a view that the text goes on to refute.
The text builds on the quotation rather than arguing against it.
C. It illustrates how historians have misread the composer's intentions.
The quotation supports the newer reading; it does not depict a misreading.
D. It shifts the text's focus from the composer to her audiences.
Audiences are never discussed; the focus stays on the composer's method.

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