Question wakako
Wakako Yamauchi is best known for And the Soul Shall Dance, her 1977 play about a Japanese American family in Southern California. The play is based on a short story Yamauchi had published three years earlier. Adapting the story wasn’t easy. Theater relies on dialogue between characters, but the original story features little dialogue and instead describes its characters’ silent thoughts. To transform the story into a play, Yamauchi created situations where characters reveal their thoughts by speaking them aloud during conversations with each other.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?
It explains why Yamauchi’s short story is better known than the play adaptation is.
It describes how Yamauchi chose the actors who performed in the play.
It offers information about how Yamauchi adapted her short story into a play.
It argues that Yamauchi’s play influenced later playwrights.
Wakako Yamauchi is best known for And the Soul Shall Dance , her 1977 play about
Medium-difficulty · SAT Reading & Writing · Central Ideas and Details — Function of a sentence in context. Read the question above, select your answer, and check the full explanation below to understand exactly why the correct choice works.
Answer explanation
Choice A is the best answer because it best describes how the underlined sentence functions in the text as a whole. According to the text, it was hard for Yamauchi to adapt her short story into the play And the Soul Shall Dance because the story had included little dialogue, instead describing the characters’ silent thoughts. The underlined sentence offers information about how Yamauchi ultimately succeeded in adapting the story into a play: it explains that Yamauchi created situations where the characters of the play could reveal their internal thoughts while speaking with each other.
Choice B is incorrect because neither the underlined sentence nor the text as a whole makes any mention of playwrights other than Yamauchi or how the play might have influenced them. Choice C is incorrect because the text states that Yamauchi is best known for her play And the Soul Shall Dance, which conveys that the play is better known than the short story it’s based on is. Choice D is incorrect because neither the underlined sentence nor the text as a whole mentions the actors who performed in the play or Yamauchi’s approach to choosing them.
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