GMAT Question of the Day: Reading Comprehension
Many argue that recent developments in electronic technology such as computers and videotape have enabled artists to vary their forms of expression. For example, video art can now achieve images whose effect is produced by digitalization: breaking up the picture using computerized information processing. Such new technologies create new ways of seeing and hearing by [...]
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Written by Take GMAT Team on May 9th, 2008 with
7 comments.
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Many argue that recent developments in electronic technology such as computers and videotape have enabled artists to vary their forms of expression. For example, video art can now achieve images whose effect is produced by digitalization: breaking up the picture using computerized information processing. Such new technologies create new ways of seeing and hearing by adding different dimensions to older forms, rather than replacing those forms. Consider Locale, a film about a modern dance company. The camera operator wore a SteadicamTM, an uncomplicated device that allows a camera to be mounted on a person so that the camera remains steady no matter how the operator moves. The SteadicamTM captures the dance in ways impossible with traditional mounts. Such new equipment also allows for the preservation of previously unrecordable aspects of performances, thus enriching archives.
By Contrast, others claim that technology subverts the artistic enterprise: that artistic efforts achieved with machines preempt human creativity, rather than being inspired by it. The originality of musical performance, for example, might suffer, as musicians would be deprived of the opportunity to spontaneously change pieces of music before live audiences. Some even worry that technology will eliminate live performance altogether; performances will be recorded for home viewing, abolishing the relationship between performer and audience. But these negative views assume both that technology poses an unprecedented challenge to the arts and that we are not committed enough to the artistic enterprise to preserve the live performance, assumptions that seem unnecessarily cynical. In fact, technology has traditionally assisted our capacity for creative expression and can refine our notions of any give art form.
For example, the portable camera and the snapshot were developed at the same time as the rise of impressionist painting in the nineteenth century. These photographic technologies encouraged a new appreciation. In addition, impressionist artists like Degas studied the elements of light and movement captured by instantaneous photography and used their new understanding of the way our perceptions distort reality to try to more accurately capture realty in their work. Since photos can capture the moments of a movement, such as a hand partially raised in a gesture of greeting, Impressionist artists were inspired to paint such moments in order to more effectively convey the quality of spontaneous human action. Photography freed artists from the preconception that a subject should be painted in a static, artificial entirety, and inspired them to capture the random and fragmentary qualities of our world. Finally, since photography preempted painting as the means of obtaining portraits, painters had more freedom to vary their subject matter, thus giving rise to the abstract creations characteristic of modern art.
1) Which one of the following statements best expresses the main idea of the passage?
(A) The progress of art relies primarily on technology.
(B) Technological innovation can be beneficial to art.
(C) There are risks associated with using technology to create art.
(D) Technology will transform the way the public responds to art.
(E) The relationship between art and technology has a lengthy history.
2) It can be inferred from the passage that the author shares which one of the following opinions with the opponents of the use of new technology in art?
(A) The live performance is an important aspect of the artistic enterprise.
(B) The public’s commitment to the artistic enterprise is questionable.
(C) Recent technological innovations present an entirely new sort of challenge to art.
(D) Technological innovations of the past have been very useful to artists.
(E) The performing arts are especially vulnerable to technological innovation.
3) Which one of the following, if true, would most undermine the position held by opponents of the use of new technology in art concerning the effect of technology on live performance?
(A) Surveys show that when recordings of performances are made available for home viewing, the public becomes far more knowledgeable about different performing artists.
(B) Surveys show that some people feel comfortable responding spontaneously to artistic performances when they are viewing recordings of those performances at home.
(C) After a live performance, sales of recordings for home viewing of the particular performing artist generally increase.
(D) The distribution of recordings of artists’ performances has begun to attract many new audience members to their live performances.
(E) Musicians are less apt to make creative changes in musical pieces during recorded performances than during live performances.
4) The author uses the example of the Steadicam(TM) primarily in order to suggest that
(A) the filming of performances should not be limited by inadequate equipment
(B) new technologies do not need to be very complex in order to benefit art
(C) the interaction of a traditional art form with a new technology will change attitudes toward technology in general
(D) the replacement of a traditional technology with a new technology will transform definitions of a traditional art form
(E) new technology does not so much preempt as enhance a traditional art form
5) According to the passage, proponents of the use of new electronic technology in the arts claim that which one of the following is true?
(A) Most people who reject the use of electronic technology in art forget that machines require a person to operate them.
(B) Electronic technology allows for the expansion of archives because longer performances can be recorded.
(C) Electronic technology assists artists in finding new ways to present their material.
(D) Electronic technology makes the practice of any art form more efficient by speeding up the creative process.
(E) Modern dance is the art form that will probably benefit most from the use of electronic technology.
6) It can be inferred from the passage that the author would agree with which one of the following statements regarding changes in painting since the nineteenth century?
(A) The artistic experiments of the nineteenth century led painters to use a variety of methods in creating portraits, which they then applied to other subject matter.
(B) The nineteenth-century knowledge of light and movement provided by photography inspired the abstract works characteristic of modern art.
(C) Once painters no longer felt that they had to paint conventional portraits, they turned exclusively to abstract portraiture.
(D) Once painters were less limited to the impressionist style, they were able to experiment with a variety of styles of abstract art.
(E) Once painters painted fewer conventional portraits, they had greater opportunity to move beyond the literal depiction of objects.
Written by Take GMAT Team on May 9th, 2008 with
7 comments.
Read more articles on GMAT Question of the Day and GMAT Reading Comprehension and GMAT Verbal.
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Kavya
Yogi
yemD
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#1. August 30th, 2006, at 12:43 AM.
1. B
2. A
3. D
4. E
5. C
6. B