Self-study
Historian: Flavius, an ancient Roman governor who believed deeply in the virtues of manual labor and moral temperance, Support actively sought to discourage the arts by removing state financial support for them. █████ ███████ ███ ██████ █████████ █████ ███ █████████ ██ ██ ███ ████████ ████ ███ █████ ██████ ██ █████████ █████ ████ ████ ███████ █████ ███ ██████ ███ ███████████████
Summarize Argument
The historian concludes that Flavius was widely unpopular among his subjects. As support, the historian cites the large number of satirical plays written about Flavius during his administration. The historian also says that Flavius took away financial support from the arts in an effort to discourage them.
Identify and Describe Flaw
The historian references the number of satirical plays written about Flavius as support for the conclusion that Flavius was widely unpopular among his subjects. However, we know that these playwrights had a reason to dislike Flavius: his removal of state funding for the arts. This fact gives us reason to doubt that the opinion of playwrights is representative of the views of the “subjects” in general.
26.
The historian's argumentation is most ██████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ██
a
fails to consider ███ ██████████ ██ █████ ███████ ██████ █████████ ██████████████ ████ ████ ███ ██████████ █████ ███████
Knowing the proportion of all plays that weren’t about Flavius wouldn’t be helpful. The conclusion uses the number of satirical plays written during his administration to show that Flavius was unpopular; the proportion in (A) wouldn’t say anything about how people felt towards Flavius.
b
treats the satirical █████ ██ █ ████████ █████████ ██ █████████ ██████████ ███████ █████████ ████ ██ ███ ████ ██ ███ ███████████
Because Flavius cut state financial support for the arts, playwrights had a reason to oppose him. Thus, the number of satirical plays written about Flavius doesn’t say much about the opinion of the general population. The playwrights are not likely to be representative of all subjects.
c
presumes, without providing █████████ ████ ███████ ███ ███████████ ████████ ██████ ███ ████
This is descriptively inaccurate. The argument does not make this assumption. The argument explicitly states that Flavius tried to discourage the arts by removing funding.
d
takes for granted ████ █████████ ███████ ██ ██████████ ███ ████ ███ ██████████
It doesn’t matter whether or not the attempt to discourage the arts was successful; it is enough to know that Flavius cut funding for the arts in an attempt to discourage them. This attempt shows us that playwrights may not be representative of the general population.
e
fails to consider ███████ ██████ █████ ███ █████ ██████████ ████ ██████ ████████ ██ ███████ ██ ███████ ████
This is irrelevant to the argument. Knowing the information in (E) would not help the premise (about the number of satirical plays) to support the conclusion about Flavius’ general unpopularity.