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Verbal·Information and Ideas·Central Ideas and Details
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The following text is adapted from Matthew Arnold’s 1869 nonfiction book Culture and Anarchy.

The Times [a British newspaper], replying to some foreign strictures on the dress, looks, and behaviour of the English abroad, urges that the English ideal is that every one should be free to do and to look just as he likes. But culture indefatigably tries, not to make what each raw person may like, the rule by which he fashions himself; but to draw ever nearer to a sense of what is indeed beautiful, graceful, and becoming, and to get the raw person to like that.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
A
The Times correctly argues that culture consists in letting everyone do and look just as he likes.
B
While the Times defends doing as one likes, true culture strives toward what is beautiful and graceful and seeks to reshape individual taste accordingly.
C
English dress and behaviour abroad have improved because culture now endorses the ideal articulated by the Times.
D
Culture and the Times agree that foreign criticism of the English is unfair and should be ignored.