Q5

[nflamel69]

Can anyone clarify why is E wrong and C is right? I think the only thing that can set them apart is the modifier mostly in E. any thoughts?

[Steve]

I think the "mostly of" in answer choice E is incorrect.

[christine.defenbaugh]

I agree with you wholeheartedly, huangfeng1102!

Let's take a moment and clarify our task here: we're looking for a view that can be reasonably attributed to the historians in line 17. Who were they again? Oh, right, the historians who question the memoirs' reliability because they were written so long after the events! Hm, if these historians are "question[ing] their reliability", that suggests that they think there are likely some factual inaccuracies!

And that's exactly what (C) says!

Let's dismantle (E): At first glance, this seems awfully similar to (C). But there are two major differences. First (C) simply says the memoirs likely contain something, while (E) claims that they are mostly full of something. That's a lot harder to prove, and we'd need specific support that the memoirs are mostly anything. No such support is in the passage.

There's another issue too though - (C) talks about factual inaccuracies, while (E) raises the idea of unverifiable accounts. Hmm...what's the difference?

Well, all we really know about these historians is that they "question [the] reliability" of the memoirs. That's pretty good support for "factual inaccuracies". But does that mean there are "unverifiable accounts"? Not necessarily!

The language of "unverifiable accounts" is meant to be tempting because it is raised later on, when "personal events known only to the author" is discussed. But we never hear what those historians from line 17 think about the existence of these unverifiable personal events.

Let's take a quick look at the remaining incorrect answers:

(A) There's no comparison between the two factions in terms of factual reliability. We only know that the royalists had the support of the monarchy - we have no idea how that impacts the factual reliability, or what the line 17 historians would conclude about it.

(B) There's no comparison between the two factions in terms of partisan bias. We only know that the royalists had the support of the monarchy - we have no idea how that impacts the partisan bias, or what the line 17 historians would conclude about it.

(D) The line 17 historians are super skeptical of the reliability of the memoirs - there's no indication that they believe that there are necessarily unskewed accounts in the memoirs.


Pay attention to every word! Quantifiers like "mostly of" make a huge difference, but so does a shift from "reliability" to "unverifiable".

I hope this helps clear things up!

[roflcoptersoisoi]

The modifier "Mostly" has nothing to do with why (E) is incorrect. The author explicitly says that some historians are skeptical about the credibility of the memoirs because people are partisan and thus actively distort reality to suit their narratives and because people tend to confuse facts. Consequently, one can reasonably infer that the historians in question are likely to perceive the memoires to contain factual inaccuracies, not because they cannot be verified, but for the aforementioned reasons. Just because something is inaccurate doesn't mean it's unverifiable. Presumably, one would need to verify a claim or fact in order to ascertain whether or not it is indeed accurate. This answer choice baits you into conflating inaccuracy with something that is unverifiable, they are not equivalent or synonyms.

[visconzain]

The modifier "Mostly" has nothing to do with why (E) is incorrect. The author explicitly says that some historians are skeptical about the credibility of the memoirs because people are partisan and thus actively distort reality to suit their narratives and because people tend to confuse facts. Consequently, one can reasonably infer that the historians in question are likely to perceive the memoires to contain factual inaccuracies, not because they cannot be verified, but for the aforementioned reasons. Just because something is inaccurate doesn't mean it's unverifiable. Presumably, one would need to verify a claim or fact in order to ascertain whether or not it is indeed accurate. This answer choice baits you into conflating inaccuracy with something that is unverifiable, they are not equivalent or synonyms.

I think you might have made a mistake in your understanding of what was ascribed to the historians in line 17. The part about them questioning the reliability of the memoirs because of the time they were written is the point of view belonging to the historians. The part that begins with "Certainly, memory is subject to the loss.................... preserving picture of the past", is not ascribed to the historians, but is actually the author making a concession to the critic of the historians, but then he goes on to show why it is not a problem. I hope this explains that bit.