Charles 'Teenie' Harris was a photographer for the Pittsburgh Courier from 1936 to 1975. During his career he took over...
GMAT Craft and Structure : (Structure) Questions
Charles 'Teenie' Harris was a photographer for the Pittsburgh Courier from 1936 to 1975. During his career he took over 70,000 photographs documenting everyday life in Pittsburgh's Black communities. The Carnegie Museum of Art maintains thousands of his photographs, carefully ________ them so that audiences can continue to view them well into the future.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
Step 1: Decode and Map the Passage
Part A: Passage Analysis Table
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
|---|---|
| "Charles 'Teenie' Harris was a photographer for the Pittsburgh Courier from 1936 to 1975." |
|
| "During his career he took over 70,000 photographs documenting everyday life in Pittsburgh's Black communities." |
|
| "The Carnegie Museum of Art maintains thousands of his photographs," |
|
| "carefully _______ them" |
|
| "so that audiences can continue to view them well into the future." |
|
Part B: Passage Architecture & Core Elements
Main Point: The Carnegie Museum carefully maintains Charles 'Teenie' Harris's important historical photographs to ensure they remain accessible to future audiences.
Argument Flow: The passage establishes Harris as a significant documentary photographer, quantifies his substantial body of work, then describes how the Carnegie Museum currently handles his photographs with a specific goal of ensuring long-term public access.
Step 2: Interpret the Question Precisely
This is a fill-in-the-blank question asking us to choose the best logical connector. The answer must create the right relationship between what comes before and after the blank.
Step 3: Prethink the Answer
- The museum has thousands of Harris's photographs and handles them "carefully" with the specific goal that "audiences can continue to view them well into the future."
- Whatever the museum is doing, it must be something that ensures the photographs will remain viewable over time.
- The missing word should describe an action that protects or maintains the photographs in good condition so they don't deteriorate.
✗ Incorrect
- Replacing means substituting the original photographs with something else.
- This wouldn't achieve the goal of letting audiences view Harris's actual historical photographs in the future.
✗ Incorrect
- Inventing means creating something new.
- The photographs already exist - Harris took them decades ago.
- This makes no logical sense in the context of maintaining existing photographs.
✓ Correct
- Preserving means keeping something in its original state and protecting it from damage or decay.
- This directly supports the goal of ensuring "audiences can continue to view them well into the future."
- Museums preserve artifacts specifically so they remain accessible over time.
✗ Incorrect
- Counting means determining the number of photographs.
- While museums do catalog their collections, simply counting doesn't ensure future viewing.
- This action has no connection to the stated goal of long-term accessibility.