In the twentieth century, ethnographers made a concerted effort to collect Mexican-American folklore, but they did not always agree about that folklore’s origins. Scholars such as Aurelio Espinosa claimed that Mexican-American folklore derived largely from the folklore of Spain, which ruled Mexico and what is now the southwestern United States from the sixteenth to early nineteenth centuries. Scholars such as AmErico Paredes, by contrast, argued that while some Spanish influence is undeniable, Mexican-American folklore is mainly the product of the ongoing interactions of various cultures in Mexico and the United States.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support Paredes’s argument?

A short passage explicit the information to analyze, and interpret the main idea.

Special attention to the facts and details draws out the main idea.

Can you summarize what you’ve understood in the above steps?

Choice A is correct and it suggests that Mexican-American folklore has evolved over time and is not solely derived from Spanish origins.

Most of the folklore that the ethnographers collected consisted of corridos—ballads about history and social life—of a clearly recent origin.

Choice B is incorrect because it only provides information about the form of the songs, not their cultural origins.

The folklore that the ethnographers collected included several songs written in the form of a décima, a type of poem originating in late sixteenth-century Spain.

Choice C is incorrect because it introduces a different aspect of the folklore’s history that is unrelated to the main point.

The folklore collected by the ethnographers was previously unknown to scholars.

Choice D is incorrect because it merely states an observation about the similarity of folklore elements across different regions.

Folklore collected by ethnographers have similar elements from region to region.

Correct sentence

Most of the folklore that the ethnographers collected consisted of corridos—ballads about history and social life—of a clearly recent origin.

Option

A

Can you summarize what you’ve understood in the above steps?