Self-study
The prevailing view among historians is that medieval European peasants were deeply dedicated to religion. ███ ███ ██████ ███████ ██ ████████ ██████ ████ ███████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ██████ ███ ████████ ██ ████ ███████████ ███ ████ ██████████████ ████████ ████ ████████ █████ ██████████ ████████ █████████ █████████ █████ █████ ██ ██████ ██ █████ ███ ██████████ ████ ██ ████████ █████████ ██████
Summarize Argument
The author concludes that there’s reason to think medieval peasants were not deeply dedicated to religion. This is because the record keepers who recorded the religious devotion of peasants were members of the clergy, who we would expect to exaggerate peasants’ level of religious dedication.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that the recordkeepers actually exaggerated peasants’ level of religious dedication. (This overlooks the possibility that, even though we might expect them to have a motive to exaggerate dedication, they did not in fact exaggerate in their records.)
16.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ █████ ████ ██████ ███ ████████ ██████
a
Among the written ███████ ████████ ██ ██████ ██ ████████ ██████ ███ █████████ █████████ ██ ██████████ ███ █ ██████ ██ █████████ █████████ █████████████ ██ ████ ██ ██████████ ██████████ ██ █████████
The author never assumed that clergy only recorded religious activities of peasants. The assumption is that the level of religious dedication was exaggerated; but this allows for plenty of records related to nonreligious things.
Illusory inconsistency
Illusory inconsistency
Answer is attractive because it seems to (but doesn't actually) contradict the premises or conclusion. In other words, it feints an attack on the premises or conclusion. If correlation is present, the answer choice is often merely an outlier datapoint, which is actually entirely consistent with the correlation.
b
Many members of ███ ██████ ██ ████████ ██████ █████ ████ ████ █████ ████████ ████ █████ ██████ ██ ███ █████ ██████ ██████
This has no clear impact. We don’t know how the amount of time spent among peasants relates to the possibility that clergy exaggerated the level of peasants’ religious dedication.
c
Written records produced ██ ██████ ██ ████████ ██████ ████ ██████ ███████ █████████ ██ ██████ ██ █████ █████████ ██ █████████
This undermines the assumption that the clergy exaggerated peasants’ religious dedication. We would expect clergy to exaggerate other peoples’ dedication, too. But if they didn’t exaggerate for merchants/nobles, that suggests they might not have exaggerated for peasants, too.
Plausibility
Plausibility
Presenting evidence that corroborates (in Strengthen) or conflicts (in Weaken) with the author's hypothesized explanation or the predictions that follow from that explanation.
d
Historians cannot develop █ ████████ ███████ ██ ███ █████████ █████████ ████ ██████ ███ █████ ██████████ ██████ ██████ ████ ████ █████████ ███ ██ ███ ████████ █████████ ███████ ████ ████ ███████
This has no clear impact. We don’t know whether historians have consulted all relevant surviving records. Also, even if historians can’t develop a reliable account, that’s consistent with the author’s position that we have reason to doubt the prevailing view.
e
Documents produced by ██████ ██ ████████ ██████ ███████ ████████ ████████████ ██ █████████████ ██ ████████ ███ ██████ ██ █████████ ███████████
The author already recognizes this possibility. His position is that these descriptions are likely to be exaggerations.
Illusory inconsistency
Illusory inconsistency
Answer is attractive because it seems to (but doesn't actually) contradict the premises or conclusion. In other words, it feints an attack on the premises or conclusion. If correlation is present, the answer choice is often merely an outlier datapoint, which is actually entirely consistent with the correlation.