Self-study
Patricia: During Japan's Tokugawa period, martial arts experts known as ninjas were trained for the purposes of espionage and assassination. ███ ██ ████ ████ █████ ███ ████████ ████ ██████ █████ ████████ ██ ██████ ███ ████ ████████ ███ ███ ████ ███████
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Summarize Argument
Tamara concludes that it is not true that most Japanese people did not fear ninjas during Japan’s Tokugawa period. She bases this on the fact that, during the Tokugawa period, many wealthy Japanese people installed intentionally squeaky floors in their homes so that they would know if a ninja snuck in.
Notable Assumptions
Tamara assumes that wealthy Japanese people during the Tokugawa period are a representative sample of most Japanese people at that time. She assumes that, just because many wealthy people seem to have feared ninjas, that means that most other Japanese people also feared ninjas.
6.
Of the following, which one, ██ █████ ██ ███ █████████ ███████ ████████ ███ ████ ██ ████████ ██████████
a
Many poor Japanese ██████ ███ ████████ ██████ ████ ███ ██████ ███████████ ████ █████████████ ███████ ███████
This strengthens Tamara’s argument slightly by showing that more than just wealthy Japanese people appear to have feared ninjas. We instead need an answer choice that weakens her conclusion that most Japanese people feared ninjas in the Tokugawa period.
b
As part of █████ ██████ █████████ ██████ ███████ ██ ████ ██ ███████ ██████ ███████ ██████ █ ██████
Even if their squeaky floors weren’t an effective defense against ninjas, wealthy Japanese people still seem to have feared them. The questions remains whether these wealthy Japanese accurately represented all Japanese people during the Tokugawa period.
c
The wealthy made ██ █ █████ ███████ ██ ███████ ██████████ ██████ ███ ████████ ███████
This weakens the argument by showing that Tamara's assumption that wealthy Japanese accurately represent all Japanese people is false. (C) points out that Tamara can't draw a conclusion about all Japanese people in the Tokugawa period based only on evidence about wealthy people.
d
The fighting prowess ██ ██████ ███ ███████████ ██ ██████ ███████████ ██ ███ █████ █████████ ███ ████████ ███████
Whether or not ninjas were truly great fighters doesn’t change the fact that many wealthy Japanese people seem to have been afraid of them during the Tokugawa period. (D) doesn’t weaken Tamara’s conclusion or point out that her assumption is false.
e
There were very ███ ██████ ██ ███ ████ █████ ████ ██████ ███ ████████ ███████
Tamara’s conclusion is only about Japanese people during the Tokugawa period, so the presence or absence of ninjas at any other time period is not relevant.