PSAT: Info & Ideas - Central Ideas

To make her art more widely available, graphic artist Elizabeth Catlett turned to linocuts. In linocut printing, an artist carves an image into a sheet of linoleum to create a stamp that is used to mass-produce prints. In the linocut series The Black Woman (1946–1947), Catlett depicts the everyday experiences of Black women alongside the achievements of well-known Black women. This pairing invites the viewer to draw connections among the women. The linocut process enabled Catlett’s work to reach a wide audience and supported her aim to unite Black women through her art.

Many literary theorists distinguish between fabula, a narrative’s content, and syuzhet, a narrative’s arrangement and presentation of events. In the film The Godfather Part II, the fabula is the story of the Corleone family, and the syuzhet is the presentation of the story as it alternates between two timelines in 1901 and 1958. But literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin maintained that fabula and syuzhet are insufficient to completely describe a narrative—he held that systematic categorizations of artistic phenomena discount the subtle way in which meaning is created by interactions between the artist, the work, and the audience.

Since its completion in 2014, Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest)—a pair of residential towers in Milan, Italy, covered by vegetation—has become a striking symbol of environmental sustainability in architecture. Stefano Boeri intended his design, which features balconies that are home to hundreds of trees, to serve as a model for promoting urban biodiversity. However, the concept has faced skepticism: critics note that although the trees used in Bosco Verticale were specifically cultivated for the project, it’s too early to tell if they can thrive in this unusual setting.

In West Africa, jalis have traditionally been keepers of information about family histories and records of important events. They have often served as teachers and advisers, too. New technologies may have changed some aspects of the role today, but jalis continue to be valued for knowing and protecting their peoples’ stories.

The following text is adapted from Lewis Carroll’s 1889 satirical novel Sylvie and Bruno. A crowd has gathered outside a room belonging to the Warden, an official who reports to the Lord Chancellor.

One man, who was more excited than the rest, flung his hat high into the air, and shouted (as well as I could make out) “Who roar for the Sub-Warden?” Everybody roared, but whether it was for the Sub-Warden, or not, did not clearly appear: some were shouting “Bread!” and some “Taxes!”, but no one seemed to know what it was they really wanted.

All this I saw from the open window of the Warden’s breakfast-saloon, looking across the shoulder of the Lord Chancellor.

“What can it all mean?” he kept repeating to himself. “I never heard such shouting before—and at this time of the morning, too! And with such unanimity!”

In 1935 Hallie Flanagan was chosen to lead the Federal Theatre Project (FTP). This project was part of the new Works Progress Administration (WPA), a program created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to provide jobs for unemployed people during the Great Depression. As the director of the FTP, Flanagan created jobs for over 12,500 performers, designers, and other theater professionals across the country. She also kept ticket prices low for the shows they staged, which meant that many people could afford to experience theater for the first time.

The recovery of a 1,000-year-old Chinese shipwreck in the Java Sea near present-day Indonesia has yielded a treasure trove of artifacts, including thousands of small ceramic bowls. Using a portable X-ray fluorescence analyzer tool, Lisa Niziolek and her team were able to detect the chemical composition of these bowls without damaging them. By comparing the chemical signatures of the bowls with those of the materials still at old Chinese kiln sites, Niziolek and her team can pinpoint which Chinese kilns likely produced the ceramic bowls.

The following text is adapted from Charles W. Chesnutt’s 1901 novel The Marrow of Tradition.

Mrs. Ochiltree was a woman of strong individuality, whose comments upon her acquaintance[s], present or absent, were marked by a frankness at times no less than startling. This characteristic caused her to be more or less avoided. Mrs. Ochiltree was aware of this sentiment on the part of her acquaintance[s], and rather exulted in it.

For many years, the only existing fossil evidence of mixopterid eurypterids—an extinct family of large aquatic arthropods known as sea scorpions and related to modern arachnids and horseshoe crabs—came from four species living on the paleocontinent of Laurussia. In a discovery that expands our understanding of the geographical distribution of mixopterids, paleontologist Bo Wang and others have identified fossilized remains of a new mixopterid species, Terropterus xiushanensis, that lived over 400 million years ago on the paleocontinent of Gondwana.

In 2018, scientists discovered an immense aggregation of Muusoctopus robustus (pearl octopuses) along a hydrothermal vent 3,200 meters beneath the ocean’s surface. Water temperatures at this site—named the Octopus Garden—climb as high as 11°C, much warmer than the ambient 1.6°C typical at this depth. Based on observations made over three years, scientists concluded that temperatures at the site likely confer reproductive benefits and that the site is used exclusively for reproduction—6,000 M. robustus adults, hatchlings, and eggs were observed at the garden, but no juveniles were present.

The following text is from Jane Austen’s 1811 novel Sense and Sensibility. Elinor lives with her younger sisters and her mother, Mrs. Dashwood.

Elinor, this eldest daughter, whose advice was so effectual, possessed a strength of understanding, and coolness of judgment, which qualified her, though only nineteen, to be the counsellor of her mother, and enabled her frequently to counteract, to the advantage of them all, that eagerness of mind in Mrs. Dashwood which must generally have led to imprudence. She had an excellent heart;—her disposition was affectionate, and her feelings were strong; but she knew how to govern them: it was a knowledge which her mother had yet to learn; and which one of her sisters had resolved never to be taught.

The following text is adapted from Johanna Spyri’s 1881 novel Heidi (translated by Elisabeth Stork in 1915). Eight-year-old Heidi and her friend’s grandmother are looking at some illustrated books.

Heidi had come and was looking with wondering eyes at the splendid pictures in the large books, that Grandmama was showing her. Suddenly she screamed aloud, for there on the picture she saw a peaceful flock grazing on a green pasture. In the middle a shepherd was standing, leaning on his crook. The setting sun was shedding a golden light over everything. With glowing eyes Heidi devoured the scene.

The following text is from Thomas Mann’s 1924 novel The Magic Mountain, translated by John E. Woods in 1995.

The story of Hans Castorp that we intend to tell here—not for his sake (for the reader will come to know him as a perfectly ordinary, if engaging young man), but for the sake of the story itself, which seems to us to be very much worth telling (although in Hans Castorp’s favor it should be noted that it is his story, and that not every story happens to everybody)—is a story that took place long ago, and is, so to speak, covered with the patina of history and must necessarily be told with verbs whose tense is that of the deepest past.

The ancient writing system used in the Maya kingdoms of southern Mexico and Central America had a symbol for the number zero. The earliest known example of the symbol dates to more than 2,000 years ago. At that time, almost none of the writing systems elsewhere in the world possessed a zero symbol. And the use of zero in Mexico and Central America may be even more ancient. Some historians suggest that Maya mathematicians inherited it from the Olmec civilization, which flourished in the region 2,400–3,600 years ago.

In the 1960s, Gloria Richardson led a movement to promote racial equality. Her involvement in this effort was inspired by her daughter, Donna Richardson. In 1961, Donna joined protests organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Cambridge, Maryland. Following her daughter, Gloria joined these protests too. Gloria soon became the cochair of the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee. She was also the leader of what became known as the Cambridge movement.

Archaeologist Veronica Waweru visited the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya. While exploring there, Waweru noticed many rows of shallow pits carved into stone. Waweru believed the pits could have been used as game boards to play ancient versions of mancala, a two-person strategy game that is still popular today. Some of the more recent pits were carved on top of older pits. This led Waweru to think that the game was played at the site for a long time.

The painter María Izquierdo played an important role in the development of twentieth-century Mexican art, but her work has never been well-known in the United States except among art historians. One reason for Izquierdo’s relative obscurity is the enormous popularity of some of her peers. In particular, the painters Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera have so captivated the interest of US audiences that Izquierdo and other Mexican artists from the period often get overlooked, despite the high quality of their work.

The following text is from David Barclay Moore’s 2022 novel Holler of the Fireflies. The narrator has just arrived at summer camp, which is far away from his home.

This place was different than I thought it would be. I’d never been somewhere like this before. I did feel scared, but also excited.

The following text is from William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, first performed in 1611. Miranda has lived on an island with her father, Prospero, since she was three years old. Prospero has stated that Miranda likely does not remember anything other than her life on the island.

MIRANDA: ’Tis far off,
And rather like a dream than an assurance
That my remembrance warrants. Had I not
Four or five women once that tended me?

PROSPERO: Thou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it
That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else
In the dark backward and abysm of time?
If thou remember’st ought ere thou camest here,
How thou camest here thou mayst.

Philadelphia’s Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra, founded by Jeri Lynne Johnson, performs classical music, from well-known compositions by Beethoven to contemporary works by Jessie Montgomery. For the orchestra’s iConduct! program, Johnson invites community members to learn some basic elements of conducting and then experience conducting the Black Pearl orchestra themselves.

Algae living within the tissues of corals play a critical role in keeping corals, and the marine ecosystems they are part of, thriving. Some coral species appear brown in color when healthy due to the algae colonies living in their tissues. In the event of an environmental stressor, the algae can die or be expelled, causing the corals to appear white. To recover the algae, the bleached corals then begin to produce bright colors, which block intense sunlight, encouraging the light-sensitive algae to recolonize the corals.

To dye wool, Navajo (Diné) weaver Lillie Taylor uses plants and vegetables from Arizona, where she lives. For example, she achieved the deep reds and browns featured in her 2003 rug In the Path of the Four Seasons by using Arizona dock roots, drying and grinding them before mixing the powder with water to create a dye bath. To intensify the appearance of certain colors, Taylor also sometimes mixes in clay obtained from nearby soil.

The following text is from Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar’s 1961 novel The Time Regulation Institute (translated from the Turkish in 2014 by Maureen Freely and Alexander Dawe). The narrator was once involved with the Time Regulation Institute, a fictional bureaucracy that regulates the time of Turkey’s clocks.

I may be the most humble and absurd man in the world and, as my wife says, the most slovenly creature you may ever meet—that is, before the founding of our institute—but I did come to know a truly great man who possessed a natural genius for invention. I spent years at his side. I watched the way he worked. I witnessed how an idea would suddenly catch fire in his mind and take shape, like a tree sprouting shoots and branches, before coming into being.

Many intellectual histories of the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s rely heavily on essays and other explicitly ideological works as primary sources, a tendency that can overrepresent the perspectives of a small number of thinkers, most of whom were male. Historian Ashley D. Farmer has shown that expanding the array of primary sources to encompass more types of print material—including political cartoons, advertisements, and artwork—leads to a much better understanding of the movement and the crucial and diverse roles that Black women played in shaping it.

In a study of new technology adoption, Davit Marikyan et al. examined negative disconfirmation (which occurs when experiences fall short of one’s expectations) to determine whether it could lead to positive outcomes for users. The team focused on established users of “smart home” technology, which presents inherent utilization challenges but tends to attract users with high expectations, often leading to feelings of dissonance. The researchers found that many users employed cognitive mechanisms to mitigate those feelings, ultimately reversing their initial sense of disappointment.

Oluwaseyi Moejoh cofounded U-recycle Initiative Africa when she was only a teenager. Moejoh and her team founded the organization to teach young people how their actions affect the environment and why recycling is important. For example, the organization put on an exhibit of art made using recycled materials.

Poetry in Classical Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec Empire, relies on difrasismo, or a parallel noun construction that conventionally operates as a single metaphor. For example, the common difrasismo in cuauhtli in ocelotl (literally, “the eagle, the jaguar”) signifies “warrior.” The device’s function is both formal—providing structure to lines of verse—and ritual: semantic relations among the two nouns and the concept they signify can be tenuous, as in the previous example, such that difrasismos are often only intelligible according to the conceptual associations observed in Aztec ceremonial culture.

Paleontologists searching for signs of ancient life have found many fossilized specimens of prehistoric human ancestors, including several from the Pleistocene era discovered in a geological formation in the Minatogawa quarry in Japan. However, to study the emergence of the earliest multicellular organisms to appear on Earth, researchers must turn elsewhere, such as to the Ediacaran geological formation at Mistaken Point in Canada. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the 146-hectare reserve contains more than 10,000 fossils that together document a critical moment in evolutionary history.

Artist Justin Favela explained that he wanted to reclaim the importance of the piñata as a symbol in Latinx culture. To do so, he created numerous sculptures from strips of tissue paper, which is similar to the material used to create piñatas. In 2017, Favela created an impressive life-size piñata-like sculpture of the Gypsy Rose lowrider car, which was displayed at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, California. The Gypsy Rose lowrider was famously driven by Jesse Valadez, an early president of the Los Angeles Imperials Car Club.

Paleontologist Lucas E. Fiorelli and colleagues have reported the discovery at a mine in Brazil of several egg clutches, partially preserved single eggs, and egg shells from the Late Cretaceous period. The researchers have concluded that the area was once a nesting and breeding site for titanosaurs, a group of sauropod dinosaurs. The finding is significant given the previous lack of known nesting sites in northern regions of South America, which led many paleontologists to assume that titanosaurs migrated south to lay eggs.

Historians point to the rule of the Piast dynasty as crucial to the formation of the Polish state. However, some differentiate between members of the dynasty like Mieszko II Lambert, who ruled as king from 1025 to 1031 CE, and less well-documented figures like Siemomysł, who is said to have ruled in the 10th century but whose historical actuality is disputed. Siemomysł appears in the Gesta principum Polonorum, a chronicle of medieval Polish history written between 1112 and 1118. However, the chronicle’s documentation of Siemomysł relies on oral tradition, unlike its records of later rulers.

The following text is adapted from Edith Nesbit's 1906 novel The Railway Children.

Mother did not spend all her time in paying dull [visits] to dull ladies, and sitting dully at home waiting for dull ladies to pay [visits] to her. She was almost always there, ready to play with the children, and read to them, and help them to do their home-lessons. Besides this she used to write stories for them while they were at school, and read them aloud after tea, and she always made up funny pieces of poetry for their birthdays and for other great occasions.

The following text is from Beatrice Harraden’s 1894 novel Ships that Pass in the Night.

In an old second-hand bookshop in London, an old man sat reading Gibbon’s History of Rome. He did not put down his book when the postman brought him a letter. He just glanced indifferently at the letter, and impatiently at the postman. Zerviah Holme did not like to be interrupted when he was reading Gibbon; and as he was always reading Gibbon, an interruption was always regarded by him as an insult.

The following text is from Thomas Mann’s 1924 novel The Magic Mountain, translated by John E. Woods in 1995.

The story of Hans Castorp that we intend to tell here—not for his sake (for the reader will come to know him as a perfectly ordinary, if engaging young man), but for the sake of the story itself, which seems to us to be very much worth telling (although in Hans Castorp’s favor it should be noted that it is his story, and that not every story happens to everybody)—is a story that took place long ago, and is, so to speak, covered with the patina of history and must necessarily be told with verbs whose tense is that of the deepest past.

The ancient writing system used in the Maya kingdoms of southern Mexico and Central America had a symbol for the number zero. The earliest known example of the symbol dates to more than 2,000 years ago. At that time, almost none of the writing systems elsewhere in the world possessed a zero symbol. And the use of zero in Mexico and Central America may be even more ancient. Some historians suggest that Maya mathematicians inherited it from the Olmec civilization, which flourished in the region 2,400–3,600 years ago.

In the 1960s, Gloria Richardson led a movement to promote racial equality. Her involvement in this effort was inspired by her daughter, Donna Richardson. In 1961, Donna joined protests organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Cambridge, Maryland. Following her daughter, Gloria joined these protests too. Gloria soon became the cochair of the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee. She was also the leader of what became known as the Cambridge movement.

Archaeologist Veronica Waweru visited the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya. While exploring there, Waweru noticed many rows of shallow pits carved into stone. Waweru believed the pits could have been used as game boards to play ancient versions of mancala, a two-person strategy game that is still popular today. Some of the more recent pits were carved on top of older pits. This led Waweru to think that the game was played at the site for a long time.

The painter María Izquierdo played an important role in the development of twentieth-century Mexican art, but her work has never been well-known in the United States except among art historians. One reason for Izquierdo’s relative obscurity is the enormous popularity of some of her peers. In particular, the painters Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera have so captivated the interest of US audiences that Izquierdo and other Mexican artists from the period often get overlooked, despite the high quality of their work.

The following text is from David Barclay Moore's 2022 novel Holler of the Fireflies. The narrator has just arrived at summer camp, which is far away from his home.

This place was different than I thought it would be. I'd never been somewhere like this before. I did feel scared, but also excited.

The following text is from William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, first performed in 1611. Miranda has lived on an island with her father, Prospero, since she was three years old. Prospero has stated that Miranda likely does not remember anything other than her life on the island.

MIRANDA: ’Tis far off,
And rather like a dream than an assurance
That my remembrance warrants. Had I not
Four or five women once that tended me?

PROSPERO: Thou hadst, and more, Miranda. But how is it
That this lives in thy mind? What seest thou else
In the dark backward and abysm of time?
If thou remember’st ought ere thou camest here,
How thou camest here thou mayst.

Philadelphia’s Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra, founded by Jeri Lynne Johnson, performs classical music, from well-known compositions by Beethoven to contemporary works by Jessie Montgomery. For the orchestra’s iConduct! program, Johnson invites community members to learn some basic elements of conducting and then experience conducting the Black Pearl orchestra themselves.

Algae living within the tissues of corals play a critical role in keeping corals, and the marine ecosystems they are part of, thriving. Some coral species appear brown in color when healthy due to the algae colonies living in their tissues. In the event of an environmental stressor, the algae can die or be expelled, causing the corals to appear white. To recover the algae, the bleached corals then begin to produce bright colors, which block intense sunlight, encouraging the light-sensitive algae to recolonize the corals.

To dye wool, Navajo (Diné) weaver Lillie Taylor uses plants and vegetables from Arizona, where she lives. For example, she achieved the deep reds and browns featured in her 2003 rug In the Path of the Four Seasons by using Arizona dock roots, drying and grinding them before mixing the powder with water to create a dye bath. To intensify the appearance of certain colors, Taylor also sometimes mixes in clay obtained from nearby soil.

The following text is from Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar’s 1961 novel The Time Regulation Institute (translated from the Turkish in 2014 by Maureen Freely and Alexander Dawe). The narrator was once involved with the Time Regulation Institute, a fictional bureaucracy that regulates the time of Turkey’s clocks.

I may be the most humble and absurd man in the world and, as my wife says, the most slovenly creature you may ever meet—that is, before the founding of our institute—but I did come to know a truly great man who possessed a natural genius for invention. I spent years at his side. I watched the way he worked. I witnessed how an idea would suddenly catch fire in his mind and take shape, like a tree sprouting shoots and branches, before coming into being.

Many intellectual histories of the Black Power movement of the 1960s and 1970s rely heavily on essays and other explicitly ideological works as primary sources, a tendency that can overrepresent the perspectives of a small number of thinkers, most of whom were male. Historian Ashley D. Farmer has shown that expanding the array of primary sources to encompass more types of print material—including political cartoons, advertisements, and artwork—leads to a much better understanding of the movement and the crucial and diverse roles that Black women played in shaping it.

In a study of new technology adoption, Davit Marikyan et al. examined negative disconfirmation (which occurs when experiences fall short of one’s expectations) to determine whether it could lead to positive outcomes for users. The team focused on established users of “smart home” technology, which presents inherent utilization challenges but tends to attract users with high expectations, often leading to feelings of dissonance. The researchers found that many users employed cognitive mechanisms to mitigate those feelings, ultimately reversing their initial sense of disappointment.

Oluwaseyi Moejoh cofounded U-recycle Initiative Africa when she was only a teenager. Moejoh and her team founded the organization to teach young people how their actions affect the environment and why recycling is important. For example, the organization put on an exhibit of art made using recycled materials.

Poetry in Classical Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec Empire, relies on difrasismo, or a parallel noun construction that conventionally operates as a single metaphor. For example, the common difrasismo in cuauhtli in ocelotl (literally, “the eagle, the jaguar”) signifies “warrior.” The device’s function is both formal—providing structure to lines of verse—and ritual: semantic relations among the two nouns and the concept they signify can be tenuous, as in the previous example, such that difrasismos are often only intelligible according to the conceptual associations observed in Aztec ceremonial culture.

Paleontologists searching for signs of ancient life have found many fossilized specimens of prehistoric human ancestors, including several from the Pleistocene era discovered in a geological formation in the Minatogawa quarry in Japan. However, to study the emergence of the earliest multicellular organisms to appear on Earth, researchers must turn elsewhere, such as to the Ediacaran geological formation at Mistaken Point in Canada. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the 146-hectare reserve contains more than 10,000 fossils that together document a critical moment in evolutionary history.

Artist Justin Favela explained that he wanted to reclaim the importance of the piñata as a symbol in Latinx culture. To do so, he created numerous sculptures from strips of tissue paper, which is similar to the material used to create piñatas. In 2017, Favela created an impressive life-size piñata-like sculpture of the Gypsy Rose lowrider car, which was displayed at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, California. The Gypsy Rose lowrider was famously driven by Jesse Valadez, an early president of the Los Angeles Imperials Car Club.