Cross-Text Connections

SAT Reading and Writing· difficulty 2/5

Text 1: Critic Wong argues that Edgar Allan Poe's tales of horror achieve their effect through atmosphere. The decaying mansions, sealed crypts, and oppressive weather of stories like "The Fall of the House of Usher" build dread before any supernatural event occurs.

Text 2: Critic Park agrees that Poe's atmospheres are powerful but locates the deeper source of his horror in narration. Poe's narrators are unreliable obsessives whose voices distort what they describe; the reader's unease arises as much from doubting the narrator as from the decaying setting itself.

Both authors would most likely agree that

  • A

    Poe's stories rely entirely on supernatural events.

  • B

    Poe's narrators are always reliable.

  • C

    Poe's stories produce dread through identifiable craft elements.

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  • D

    Poe's writing has no atmospheric quality.

Explanation

Both critics agree Poe's effects come from craft (atmosphere or narration); they differ on which dominates. A is shared. B, C, and D contradict at least one critic.

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