Author's Main Point Practice Test

When Claude Monet’s painting of his hometown’s harbor titled Impression, Sunrise debuted in a Paris art show in 1874, critics had no idea what to make of it.  Despite the qualms and complaints of art critics, Monet’s piece became famous. Many artists began to mimic the style of Monet’s painting, which departed from the carefully realistic portraiture and history paintings of previous works and instead aimed to present the suggestion of a subject, paying special attention to the interaction of light with the subject.  This style eventually developed into an entire artistic movement that took its name from Monet’s painting and came to be called “impressionism.”

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

From an essay by L. Patel (2017). Alexander Fleming returned from vacation in 1928 to find that a mold had invaded one of his petri dishes, killing the surrounding bacteria. Most researchers would have tossed the contaminated plate; Fleming looked more closely. His curiosity about that "ruined" experiment led to the isolation of penicillin, the first widely used antibiotic. I do not cite this episode to romanticize lab mishaps, but to emphasize that apparent failures often contain information we can use, if only we pause to examine them. A culture that treats every deviation from plan as waste squeezes out the very moments that can change a field. In research, as in life, we move forward not only by perfecting our methods but by noticing what surprises us.

Which choice best states the main purpose of the text?