PrepTest 101, Section 3, Question 23
Historians of North American architecture who have studied(77 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(9 more words not shown)
- AMore original floorboards(13 more words not shown)
- BIn the early(22 more words not shown)
- CIn the early(12 more words not shown)
- DSome early nineteenth-century(22 more words not shown)
- EMany of the(30 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Narrow floorboards might cost more. But buying an expensive floor doesn't necessarily mean you're trying to show off.
Maybe the owners thought those boards made a better floor and could afford the extra expense. Or perhaps the difference was regional: bigger houses tended to be built in one area, where narrow boards were common for some other reason. The pattern could be real while the historians' explanation for it was wrong.
The historians want to move from “wealthier people had these floors” to “these floors were chosen to proclaim wealth.” Those are different claims. The first concerns who owned them; the second concerns what the owners wanted the floors to communicate.
What we’re looking for
We're asked to strengthen the explanation, so we need something that helps connect the narrow boards with a display of wealth. Our alternative possibilities show what remains open, but the answer's job is to give the historians more support, not supply another reason they might be mistaken.
Working the answers
- A
The number of surviving boards doesn't explain why the owners originally chose them. More boards from big houses could survive for many reasons, including there having been more flooring to begin with. A doesn't connect the width of those boards to cost, prestige, or the owners' purpose.
- BCorrect
Read the price comparison carefully: it concerns individual pieces of the same length. A narrow piece covers less floor than a wide one. If the narrow piece isn't significantly cheaper, using narrow pieces to cover the same area will cost more.
Picture a board half as wide as another but just as long. You would need two narrow boards to cover the strip covered by one wide board. If each narrow piece costs about as much as the wide piece, that strip costs about twice as much to cover. The near-equal price per piece is therefore a reason to expect a more expensive floor.
That makes the proposed wealth display more plausible: the narrower boards represent a costly choice, not merely a cheap way to cover a large house. It doesn't rule out a preference for quality or prove what every owner intended. It supplies financial context that supports the historians' interpretation.
- C
Fewer rooms doesn't tell us how large the individual rooms were or why one board width would suit them better. It also doesn't tell us whether anyone chose a width to communicate wealth. We would have to invent the connection between room count and the historians' proposed motive.
- D
If the narrow boards are hidden by carpet, their width isn't something visitors would easily see. That gives us no support for treating the visible width as a display of wealth. The answer describes where some boards were used without establishing the motive the historians attribute to their owners.
- E
Some wealthy owners chose expensive marble. We're trying to explain a distinction within wooden floors. The existence of costly floors made from another material doesn't tell us what narrow wood boards cost or why people chose them over wide boards. B addresses that particular comparison.
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