Crossword Genius

Exemplary piece of literary work (7)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

extract

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'work' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'exemplary piece of literary' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'piece' could be 'tract' (tract is a kind of piece) and 'tract' is found in the answer.
The remaining letters 'ex' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This explanation may well be incorrect...

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for extract that I've seen before include "Equality of civil rights" , "Get out" , "Passage taken from book etc" , "Find out" , "bit" .)

I've seen this clue in The Globe and Mail.
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