What is ahead? How will we handle these and other upcoming advances?

DIRECTIONS: In the passage below, certain phrases are underlined and numbered <x>. The question will present alternatives for the underlined part. In most cases, you are to choose the one that best expresses the idea, makes the statement appropriate for standard written English, or is worded most consistently with the style and tone of the passage as a whole. If you think the original version is the best, choose "NO CHANGE".

Science Fiction

[§1] One of the most famous novels of all time, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, marked not only the highpoint of a young woman’s literary career. But <1> also the beginning of a brand-new genre of literature begins science fiction. <2> In her remarkable tale, Shelley explores what might happen if a scientific possibility C the ability to restore life to the dead C were to become a reality. This exploration of how what-might-be would affect our world is the essence of science fiction.

[§2] What Shelley began, H. G. Wells perfected in dozens of science fiction works including The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds. While Shelley’s Frankenstein created a living creature from the body parts of the dead, Wells’ characters traveled through time; created half-animal, half-human creatures; made themselves invisible; and having been attacked by Martians. <3> In all of his novels, Wells; like Shelly <4> used scientific possibilities to analyze and often criticize his own society. War of the Worlds, for example, is a thinly disguised attack on the British colonialism of his time.

[§3] Science fiction flourished in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s with “pulp” magazines that for the masses churned out science fiction stories. <5> Meanwhile, in Europe, science fiction writers were using science fiction to help bring about political change. Yevgeny Zamyatin’s classic novel We, for example, is against <6> the Soviet Union’s Communist agenda.

[§4] Today, science fiction writers around the world continue to explore possibilities C possibilities that are fast becoming realities. Much of what science fiction writers only dreamed of a century ago, such as cloning and space travel, have already come to pass.

What is ahead? How will we handle these and other upcoming advances? Let us hope that science fiction writers are wrong, for all too often, characters in science fiction stories, like they’re <7> forefather Victor Frankenstein, are unable to handle <8> the responsibility of having so much power over nature.

<2>:
A . NO CHANGE
B . literature: science fiction
C . literature, that was, science fiction
D . literature (science fiction)

View Answer

Answer: B

Explanation:

Choice A incorrectly uses being; choice C includes superfluous commas and uses the past tense, though the genre still exists; and choice D sets off what is important in the sentence C the name of the new genre

C in parentheses, indicating that it is not important.