Self-study
Support Medieval Arabs had manuscripts of many ancient Greek texts, which were translated into Arabic when there was a demand for them. ████████ ████ ████████████ ████ ████ ██████████ ██ ███████████ ████████ ██ ████████ ████ █████████ ███ ███ ██████ ██ ████████ ████ ██████ ███████ █ ████ ██████████ ██ ███ ███████ █████ █████████ ████ ██████ ██ ████ ██████ ██ █████ █████ █████████ ██████████ ███████ ███ █████ ███ ███ ██████████ ████ ██████ █████ ██████ ██████
Summarize Argument
The author concludes that medieval Arab poets weren’t interested in Aristotle’s Poetics. This is because Aristotle frequently references Homer, whose work a medieval Arab poet would presumably want to read. But Homer wasn’t translated into Arabic until much later, which signals there was low demand at the time.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes medieval Arab poets couldn’t read Homer in the original Greek, or in some other translated language. The author also assumes that Homer was available to Arab translators, and that medieval Arab poets were numerous enough to generate translation demand.
21.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ████████ ████████ ███ ████████ ██████
a
A number of ████████ ████ ███████████ █████████ ███████████ ██ ███ ███████ █████ ██ █████ ████████ ██████
Arab translators had Homer's works in Greek, so availability wasn't an obstacle to translation. This strengthens by eliminating an alternative explanation for why Homer's works weren't translated.
Alternate explanation
Alternate explanation
Weaken: Introduce or support an alternate explanation for a phenomenon.
Strengthen: Helps to eliminate an alternate explanation for a phenomenon.
b
Medieval Arabic story ███████ ████ ██ ███ ███████ ███████ ███ ██ ████ ████ ███████ ██ █████ ██ ███ ███████ ██████
Were the similarities because medieval Arab storytellers had read Homer? Were both inspired by a third source of stories? Were the similarities just coincidence? We don't know, so this doesn't help us.
c
In addition to ███████████ ████ ██████ ████████ ████ ███████████ ████████ ██████ ████████ ██ ████ █████ ██████████ ███████ ██ ██████ █████████ ███ ██ ████████
This is irrelevant. Whatever other languages that medieval Arab translators knew don't make a difference to the argument. We're specifically concerned with Homer's works, which were originally in Greek.
d
Aristotle's Poetics has ██████████ ████ █████ ███ █████████ ██ ██ ██████ ████ ██████
We don’t care about modern Arab poets, we care about medieval Arab poets. This isn't relevant to the argument, so it can't strengthen.
e
Aristotle's Poetics is ███████ █████████ ████ ██████ ███ ████████ █████ ████ ███████ ███ █████████ ██ ████████ ██████
Lots of works are presumably concerned with drama. This doesn’t tell us whether medieval Arab poets were interested in Aristotle’s Poetics, so it doesn't strengthen.