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Information and IdeasVery hardSelecting a quotation showing behavior change, not awareness

Information and Ideas practice question

For three months in 1978, a four-person crew filmed the night shift at the Bracken Street bakery for the documentary Rising. Director Imelda Faust worked by available light and kept her camera in one fixed corner so that the bakers would, as she later wrote, "forget we were there by Tuesday." The daily reels suggest otherwise. In the first week the bakers work in near silence and glance up each time the film magazine is changed. By the fourth week the shop is noisy, but the noise runs one way: jokes are explained, each step of the proofing is narrated aloud, the names of tools are supplied unprompted. Faust cut all of it. Rising runs 71 minutes and contains not one word spoken to the camera.

Which quotation from the text best supports the claim that the bakers eventually came to treat the film crew as an audience for whom their work needed explaining?

  1. A. "Director Imelda Faust worked by available light and kept her camera in one fixed corner"
  2. B. "In the first week the bakers work in near silence and glance up each time the film magazine is changed"
  3. C. "jokes are explained, each step of the proofing is narrated aloud, the names of tools are supplied unprompted"Correct
  4. D. "Rising runs 71 minutes and contains not one word spoken to the camera"

Answer: C. "jokes are explained, each step of the proofing is narrated aloud, the names of tools are supplied unprompted"

The claim is specifically that the bakers began addressing an outside audience that required explanation. Choice C shows precisely that: explaining jokes, narrating familiar steps, and naming tools are all things bakers would never need to do for one another, so the behavior is shaped for outsiders. Choice A quotes Faust's technique and intention, evidence about the filmmaker rather than about the bakers' behavior, and it points toward the opposite conclusion. Choice B is the error of mistaking awareness or self-consciousness for performance: glancing up and falling silent show the bakers noticed the camera, not that they were explaining their work to it. Choice D describes the finished film, which reflects Faust's editing choices; because she cut the direct address, the released footage conceals rather than documents the behavior in question.

Why the other answers are wrong

A. "Director Imelda Faust worked by available light and kept her camera in one fixed corner"
This quotation is about Faust's filming technique and her hope to be forgotten — it's evidence about the director, not about the bakers explaining their work.
B. "In the first week the bakers work in near silence and glance up each time the film magazine is changed"
Falling silent and glancing up show the bakers noticed the camera; the claim requires them to be explaining things to it, which is behavior from the fourth week, not the first.
D. "Rising runs 71 minutes and contains not one word spoken to the camera"
This describes the finished film after Faust cut the direct address — the released 71 minutes hide the very behavior the claim is about.

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