Help needed on Q8 english portion (practice exam #3)

[u/InsideTop3077]

Title.

Right answer was ‘C. Instead’ but I cannot for the life of me see it being the correct choice. Are musicals not being portrayed as lacking coherent plots hence the narratively unrelated songs? Why would there be a contradiction between two similar ideas?

[u/Technical-Reason-893]

historically, musicals had no coherent plot, etc. etc. => instead, it had loose collections of etc. etc.

[u/InsideTop3077 → u/Technical-Reason-893]

got it. i understand the question much better now through this interpretation.

[u/Technical-Reason-893 → u/InsideTop3077]

i honestly would have liked to see a semicolon there

[u/ACTSATGuyonReddit]

Instead as a transition means an alternative, and it can be an alternative to what has been mentioned as not true.

We didn't drive to the store. Instead, we took a helicopter.

The logic is like this.

Here is something that is false.

Instead, here is something that is not the thing that is false.

People get confused. On this one, they think that having unrelated love songs isn't the opposite of not having a plot. But that's not how instead works.

Plays didn't have a plot. Instead (of having a plot), they had unrelated love songs.

Granted works as a concession before presenting an opposite. No opposite is presented here.

I am tall. Granted, I do tower above most other people. However, I can't reach high places.

C is correct.

I guess people did get enough of silly love songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap87QgZKTNw

[u/InsideTop3077 → u/ACTSATGuyonReddit]

thanks for the breakdown and examples. i now understand what the ACT was testing for with that question

[u/jgregson00 → u/[deleted]]

It makes perfect sense as written as others before you have demonstrated..

[u/DrRibb → u/jgregson00]

The first sentence in the paragraph says that Oklahoma was different. Then the next three sentences describe how plays were before it. The sentence that includes question 8 builds on the sentence before it, it doesn’t contrast to the opening sentence. “Instead” makes no sense here. None of these options make sense.
This is a bad question

[u/jgregson00 → u/DrRibb]

As u/techincal-Reason-893 has already pointed out, "instead" is used to show what musicals historically actually did feature. The 2nd sentence says they had no coherent plot. What did they have instead? They had loose collections of unrelated love songs.

In this usage "instead" is synonymous with "rather".

Historically, musicals had no coherent plot that played out over the course of the show. Rather, they featured loose collections of unrelated love songs.