Question 46 Answer and Explanation _ACT December 2015 Form 72E English Section

Passage IV

The Construction of a Graphic Novel

[1]

The story begins at my cluttered wooden desk, where I write in whatever space I can clear among the haphazard stacks of sketchbooks, photos, and comics. I jot down notes about characters and plots, collecting recurring images and themes as I go. Eventually, a story line I can imagine as a graphic novel emerges. I keep scribbling until I’ve written a full first draft. When I was younger, I preferred stories about superheroes in space. (46) I approach that draft one chapter at a time and carve out the plot, taking away text until only the barest framework had been left.

[2]

Once the story is solid, I swivel my chair around and face the gleaming, white, surface of my tilted, drawing table. [A] I map out a storyboard, limiting myself to five or six sentences per page. The sentences are accompanied by a series of: thumbnails, small panels that I use to experiment with the sequence of images. Because graphic novels demand such economy of language, I often deviate from a strictly chronological narrative. [B] Devoting even a single panel to a flashback of an event in a character’s past can reveal a motivation that might have taken a whole page of words to explain.

[3]

(53) A circular panel that features a close-up of a character’s shocked face, for example, emphasizes the emotion; it creates an entirely different effect than a rectangle containing a wide view of a character in a crowd. [C] I work in pencil at this stage, constantly making adjustments to get each image just right I tilt the angle of one character’s torso to suggest her distrust of the woman sitting next to her. I sharpen the lines of a character’s tightened jaw to give away the anger behind his seemingly polite reply. [D] Each visual detail is as vital to the narrative as any word.

[4]

[1] Over weeks and months, that stack becomes heavy, its weight a satisfying affirmation of my progress. [2] When I’m ready to fully commit the story to the paper, I uncap a pen and then ink every penciled line. [3] The finished pages pile up steadily. (58)

46. The writer is considering deleting the preceding sentence. Should the sentence be kept or deleted?

F. Kept, because it illustrates the kinds of topics the narrator enjoys writing about.

G. Kept, because it demonstrates that the narrator has loved writing and drawing from an early age.

H. Deleted, because it doesn’t identify any of the superheroes.

J. Deleted, because it interrupts the paragraph’s focus on the narrator’s writing process.

Answer and Explanation

Your Answer is

Correct Answer is J

Explanation

This sentence means "When I was young, I was partial to space hero stories." This sentence should be deleted because it deviates from the "author's writing process" described here.

Item H: The error is that even in the sentence "identify any of the superheroes" is information that has nothing to do with the subject of the paragraph.