Cross-Text Connections

SAT Reading and Writing· difficulty 3/5

Text 1: Critic Park argues that fairy tales serve a psychologically valuable function. By dramatizing fears in symbolic form — the devouring wolf, the wicked stepmother — they help children process emotions safely. To sanitize traditional fairy tales, Park contends, is to deprive children of useful tools for emotional growth.

Text 2: Critic Singh accepts that fairy tales address fears but questions the "useful tool" framing. Many traditional tales also transmit values children would be better off without — passivity in girls, cruelty as virtue. Adapting tales for modern audiences, Singh argues, is not sanitization but a long tradition of selecting which lessons to keep.

The authors most clearly disagree about

  • A

    whether fairy tales feature wolves.

  • B

    whether fairy tales address children's fears.

  • C

    whether traditional fairy tales should be adapted or preserved unchanged.

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  • D

    whether children have emotions.

Explanation

Both accept that fairy tales address fears. They differ on adaptation. B captures the dispute.

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