Q15 - A survey of historians shows that

[nflamel69]

Geeks please help with this one. I thought E was correct until I re-read the question during review. I thought the assumption was that the author is assuming that these other sources are important for historical knowledge, so they would take that for granted right? So E is completely opposite of that right? what if E doesn't have the "not" part, would E be right? Or would the "other sources" not specific enough. And if the stim says it fails to neglect that.. would E be the right answer?

[ohthatpatrick]

Yeah, you've hit the nail on the head with (E) as a trap answer.

Basically, without getting into the nitty-gritty (which I will do in a sec), (E) would be a correct answer if prefaced by
fails to consider / neglects the possibility / ignores the possibility

Those answer choice prefixes essentially mean "Weaken". (I read them with the mentality of "if true, does this hurt the argument?")

It's a totally different situation when the answer starts with
takes for granted / presumes w/o providing justification / assumes without warrant

These answer choices prefixes mean "Necessary Assumption". (I read them with the mentality of "does the author NEED to assume this? If this WEREN'T true, would this hurt the argument?")

Obviously, the big difference is that a correct "takes for granted, etc." answer will go WITH the author's thinking, while a correct "fails to consider, etc." answer will go AGAINST the author's thinking.

You'll often see trap Flaw answer choices that have a valid idea, just going in the wrong direction based on that prefix language.

Now ... is (E) a valid idea, just presented with the wrong prefix language?

I don't think so. I think (E) is irrelevant.

Consider this analogous argument:
A survey of teenagers shows that most believe chocolate to be the best flavor of ice cream. None of the teenagers regarded strawberry, vanilla, or butter pecan as the best flavor. So these teenagers neglected to consider many delicious flavors of ice cream.

Objection: How do we know they neglected to consider the other flavors? Maybe they considered the flavors, but still chose chocolate as being the best.

Similarly, in Q15, the historians didn't necessarily NEGLECT other historical sources; they just decided that written texts were the best source.

(C) is a confusing way of addressing this flaw. It's essentially trying to call out the author's logic as, "if they didn't consider a source as the best, then they neglected that source."
By thinking that way, the author is assuming that you fall into one category or the other.

Ironically, this answer would sound much better if prefaced by "fails to consider".

The author fails to consider that historians may have considered many other historical sources even if the historians did not consider any of those other sources as the best.

(C) writes that idea in the opposite, by saying that the author assumed that a source is either "best" or "neglected".

=== other answers ==

A) does the author have to assume that the only potential sources of historical understanding are written texts and the arts? No, that's a very extreme idea. The author only mentions the arts, but that doesn't commit him to believing that the arts are the only other potential source.

B) does the author have to assume that the other sources he brought up are important ONLY as historical sources? No, that's a very extreme idea. The author only mentions that these sources are important as historical sources, but he might believe they're important for other reasons as well.

D) does the author have to assume that some other source is REALLY the best source? No, this is irrelevant to what the author is trying to prove. The issue of the author's conclusion is "whether or not historians neglected important historical sources", not "whether or not other sources are the best".

Hope this helps.

[tian.application]

but does it matter though?

I think no matter whether the author took it for granted that there is/is not anything besides writing and those arts, the historians still neglect many important repositories of knowledge??? Someone please help here.

E.g. sources are
1. written
2. blabla arts
3. relics

Under this circumstance, author is making the mistake as the correct answer illustrated.

However, if sources are
1. written
2. blablabla arts
and nothing else

Historian still neglect important sources. Just because #2 are not the best doesn't mean they are not important, right??

Please help!!!

I got it right under timed condition, but got E when I was reviewing it.