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If you activate the Keyboard Highlight mode (by clicking that highlighter on the right tool column) and happen to have Grammarly on, you can apparently change the stimulus lol.
phi
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2028
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phi
Saturday, May 2
This is based on my understanding on why A is right:
The main focus here was how the Vinland Map was thought to likely be fake because they used ink with titanium in it (we’ll call it Ti ink). But later analysis proved that in the 15th century, there actually WERE other documents that used Ti ink. We went from “there were NONE” to “there were at least A FEW”. With this premise, we then got two claims:
It first claimed that the Ti ink from B-36 indicates that it is likely printed by Johannes as well, since it mentioned there were very few Ti ink documents. So the very few are most likely from the same source. But note, this claim works if Ti ink is RARE or barely used.
Example: Let’s say your friend bought a cake with a really exotic fruit called “ackee” on top of it (it's a real fruit, feel free to search it up). You would think that they very likely bought it from “store A”, because ackee is a fruit barely used on cakes and that store is the only store you know that uses ackee.
But one day, ackee became very popular, and every cake store would use it. Now, if they bring you a cake with the same fruit, you are no longer confident which store it is from.
The second claim is that we can no longer assume the Vinland Map being a fake just because it uses Ti ink, because the map might just be one of the 15th-century documents that uses Ti ink.
But the main conclusion here states that the presence of Ti in ink is no longer a reason for even doubting the map’s authenticity.
It took a little extra time for me to think this through here, but if we want to safely or confidently say that the presence of Ti IS NOT going to be a reason to doubt its authenticity AT ALL, we must assume that the Ti ink is not something extremely limited in use.
Example
In the Victorian Era, very few clothes were purple because purple dye was extremely rare and expensive. Very few commoners wear purple clothes, and most of the time, only rich families do.
Back in the modern day, you found a purple dress in an antique store that is claimed to be from the Victorian Era. You will likely be more lenient that it's from a rich family, or that it’s actually from the modern era instead. You would not be very lenient towards it being from a commoner of the Victorian era, because it is so rare, even if someone claims that this dress was really from a commoner back then. It is definitely possible that it was from a commoner, but you would highly doubt it.
Now, let’s change assumptions, assume that in the past, purple dye was actually not as rare and expensive as we thought; either most or a lot of commoners had it. Now, back to the same scenario, if the storekeeper claims that it was from a commoner, this time, you would not doubt the dress solely because it is purple, because purple was a very common colour back then. You might still doubt it because of something else (maybe the style or the fabric), but the fact that it is purple is just no longer a factor that would raise doubt at all.
Now the problem: In one claim, we are saying that the use of Ti ink is limited. The other claim is inferring that it is widespread enough to not be a reason for doubt of authencity at all. This is a contradiction.
Thus, answer choice A is the answer, as it points out how the passage is saying that the Ti ink is both extremely restricted and not extremely restricted.
C seems to be picked quite a lot. But C is just too specific. It was never the specific date and location that were being determined from the presence of Ti ink, it was the authenticity(whether it is real) of the documents and whether presence of Ti is still a good reason to cast doubt of its authenticity.
It was long but hope it helps.
I was just thinking after I saw that change in the highlighter tool, "Could this get any worse?".... Welp, they just did it(again)... I'm really starting to think that they are out of "super hard questions" for new LSATs, so they are using these methods to torture us on exam day instead lololol.