Q2 - In 1893, an excavation led by Wilhelm

[ohthatpatrick]

What does the Question Stem tell us?
Necessary Assumption

Break down the Stimulus:
Conclusion: The city WD uncovered is NOT the city of Troy described in "The Iliad".
Evidence: In "The Iliad", the war lasted ten years, but the city uncovered by WD couldn't have handled a ten year war.

Any prephrase?

MISSING LINK: if a book describes a war that a certain city couldn't handle, then the book is not describing that certain city.
DEBATE IT: how could we argue that this city WAS the Troy from "The Iliad"? Maybe we could say that the city was much larger back when the book/war happened. Maybe we could say that Homer exaggerated the length of the war for the sake of his book. Maybe we could say that even though the Trojan War lasted ten years, it didn't involve the city of Troy under siege for ten continuous years.

Correct answer:
E

Answer choice analysis:
A) Red flag: strong wording "No other city". Whether WD's city is the only option or one of many has nothing to do with the author's reason for disqualifying it from contention.

B) Red flag: strong wording "doesn't provide ANY clues". Whether the book does or doesn't provide any clues has no bearing on how the author is disqualifying this city from contention.

C) Red flag: strong wording "found NO evidence". Whether WD's team did or didn't find any evidence of a siege isn't crucial. Let's negate this and suppose that WD's team DID find evidence of a siege. Does that cripple the author's argument? No, because the city WD found could easily have been under siege at a different time, during a different conflict. Evidence of a "ten year siege" (whatever that would be) would be crushing counterevidence, since the author doesn't think that this city can handle such a siege.

D) This actually weakens.

E) The author is definitely assuming that the Trojan War DID last ten years. If we negate this answer choice, and "The Iliad" is not useful for identifying how long the Trojan War took, then the author no longer has ANY counterevidence to mount against the idea that this city could be Troy. His sole objection was based on this duration of the Trojan War, according to "The Iliad".

Takeaway/Pattern: In a Flaw question, we might call this argument an Appeal to Inappropriate Authority. Why is the author citing "The Iliad" as though it represents historical fact? He must be assuming that it has some credibility in that department, which is what (E) is getting at.

#officialexplanation

[ganbayou]

I chose C...I thought if there is no evidence, then it does not represent the period.
Why is C wrong and E correct?

[MingL143]

I prephrase this one before going to the answer choice:
"Trojan War was a siege. "
Therefore, I chose "C".

Also, the conclusion "could not have" is quite strong wording, isn' it?

[ohthatpatrick]

The conclusion is "But that belief cannot be correct",
or "The city Wilhelm found was not the sight of the war described in The Iliad."

It is still a strong idea, "cannot be correct".
However, it's premise is equally strong: "this city could not have withstood a siege lasting that long."

Siege is a synonym for war. So I think your prephrase was trying to make a link between synonyms (we don't have to say "the author was assuming that the Trojan War was a siege" because that would be like saying "the author was assuming that the Trojan War was a war")

(C) would definitely strengthen the argument, but it's too extreme an idea to be necessary.

If there were a few scraps of evidence of the city having at some point been through a siege, it wouldn't weaken the author's case at all. He was never saying this city was free of sieges. He was only saying that this city was free of 10-year-sieges, like the one described in the book.