Self-study
Newspaper article: Support Recently discovered clay tablets from southern Egypt date to between 3300 and 3200 B.C. Though Support most of the tablets translated thus far are tax records, Support one of them appears to contain literary writing. ██████ █████ ███████ █████████ ███ ██████ ████ ██████ █████ ██████████ ████ ███ ████████ ████████████ ██ ███████████ ███ ███ █████ ██ ██████ ███████████
Summary
The author concludes that the tablets challenge the idea that Sumerians were the first to create literature. The reasoning is that the tablets contain literary writing and are from between 3300 and 3200 B.C. The author believes that the presence of these tablets means that another group might have been the first to create literature.
Notable Assumptions
An assumption is that the Sumerians are believed to have created literature after the period 3300-3200 B.C. If the Sumerians are believed to have created literature earlier, then the tablets wouldn’t matter.
7.
The argument in the newspaper ███████ ████████ ███ ██████████ ████
a
most of the ████████ ██████████ ███████ ████ ████ ███ ███ ████ ██████████ ███████ ████████ ███████
All that’s necessary for the argument is that at least 1 tablet contains some literary writing, which the stimulus already tells us. Thus, even if none of the untranslated tablets contain literary writing, the argument could still be true.
b
every civilization that ███ ████ ███ ███████ ███ ████ ████ █████ ███████ ███████
All that matters for the argument is that the tablets contain literary writing, which the stimulus tells us. It doesn’t need to be that every civilization with tax records has other written records — it only matters that this specific civilization has some literary writing.
c
historians generally believe ████ ███ █████████ ███ ███ ██████ ██████████ ███████ ████ ████ ████
If the Sumerians created literature before 3300 B.C., then these tablets it wouldn’t matter, because the Sumerians would still have been the first to create literature. (C) is necessary to know that the newly-discovered tablets would be the earliest evidence of literature.
d
some historians are █████████ █████ ███ ████████████ ██ ███ ████████ ██████████ ███████
If anything, (D) would undermine the argument by suggesting that maybe the the tablets aren’t actually legitimate evidence of literary writing.
e
the Sumerian civilization █████ ████████ ███████ ████ ███ ████ ████
This isn’t necessary — if Sumerian society developed in 2800 B.C., it wouldn’t undermine the argument. In fact, it would probably strengthen the argument by making it certain that the tablets discovered in Egypt came before the Sumerians.