Q6

[sujin91]

I understand why answer choice C is the correct answer. But why is answer choice A wrong ( the one I originally picked) ? The author even states that examination of medieval women's lives "overly simplistic" (like 5-6). Does this imply that the tradiational view "fails" to consider widows that's talked about in the passage? Please explain.

Thank you

[ohthatpatrick]

Yeah, I, too, was tempted by (A) because I, too, saw lines 5-6 as the Most Valuable Sentence, framing this whole passage.

It's a recurring LSAT RC pattern to start a passage with what MOST scholars thought, or what is USUALLY assumed, and then for the author to say but/yet/however "they're wrong".

So the wording of (A) fished me in --- but be careful, it's ANOTHER recurring LSAT RC pattern to start a trap answer choice with very attractive wording and to end it with something inaccurate.

Some people call these "half right, half wrong". Naturally, the "correct" half is always first so that we fall in love and ignore the flaws of how the answer choice ends.

What (A) needs to say to be correct is that the traditional view fails to consider how "13th century women who owned land actually DID have some legal/political influence".

Instead, it pinpoints women who had great "wealth and social status".

If you re-read the sentence AFTER 5-6, the reason the author cites for the traditional view being overly simplistic is that (line 10) "women's control of land had important political implications".

Is "wealth and social status" the same thing as "owning land"? Sometimes, but not necessarily. We can't equate those.

It does say in line 13 "land equaled wealth and wealth equaled power", but we can't get 'social status' anywhere in the passage.

The other incorrect part of (A) is that it's claiming that these land-owning women were EXEMPTED from restrictions to hold public offices, i.e., that they WERE allowed to hold public offices.

That's not true, according to the passage. Again, lines 6-13 tell us that "although they were legally excluded from public roles ... they still had important political implications".

That's just saying that they had other effects on public life, not that they were granted special permission to hold public office, as (A) suggests.

Hope this helps.

[GraceS579]

Hi, could you please explain why (E) is incorrect, as the passage seems to be mostly talking about the land, wealth and power widows had?

[smiller]

Hi, could you please explain why (E) is incorrect, as the passage seems to be mostly talking about the land, wealth and power widows had?

That's exactly right. The passage is about the wealth and power that women acquired by owning and controlling land. Choice (C) specifically mentions power. Choice (E) just states that women were able to acquire land, but doesn't mention power like choice (C) does.