Self-study
Support The enthusiastic acceptance of ascetic lifestyles evidenced in the surviving writings of monastic authors indicates that Conclusion medieval societies were much less concerned with monetary gain than are contemporary Western cultures.
Summarize Argument
The argument concludes that medieval societies were less focused on making money than are modern ones. This is because medieval monastic authors (monks) embraced disciplined religious lifestyles.
Identify and Describe Flaw
The argument’s flaw is drawing from a biased sample to make a general claim. It infers a conclusion about medieval societies in general despite only appealing to writings from monks. This group is likely to be unrepresentative of society as a whole because monks were probably more accepting of ascetic lifestyles than were the rest of people in their societies.
10.
The reasoning in the argument ██ ████ ██████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ███ ████████
a
employs the imprecise ████ █████████
The term “ascetic” just refers to a disciplined religious lifestyle, so there’s nothing imprecise about how the argument uses it.
b
generalizes from a ██████ ████ ██ ██████ ██ ██ ████████████████
This points out the problem in using monks’ writings as support for the claim that medieval societies in general were less concerned with money. Other members of medieval society may have been more concerned with money than monks were.
c
applies contemporary standards ███████████████ ██ ████████ █████████
This would describe an argument that unfairly uses a modern standard to judge medieval people. The argument doesn’t do this; it simply draws a comparison between medieval and modern societies regarding how much each society cared about monetary gain.
d
inserts personal opinions ████ ████ ████████ ██ ██ █ ███████ ██████
The author draws on written evidence revealing acceptance of ascetic lifestyles, not on personal opinions.
e
advances premises that ███ ████████████
This would describe an argument that cites evidence that contradicts itself, but there’s nothing contradictory about the monastic writings about ascetic lifestyles.