PrepTest 107, Section 2, Question 27
Until about 1970, anyone who wanted to write(430 more words not shown)
It can be inferred from(27 more words not shown)
- Amost modern legal(9 more words not shown)
- Bthe linguistic and(10 more words not shown)
- Ca tendency on(18 more words not shown)
- Dthe mistaken view(22 more words not shown)
- Ethe relative scarcity(10 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
The records are hard to work with, and few historians have wanted to study women's legal experiences. Both came up. But the question asks which factor is most responsible, so listing possible explanations isn't enough. We need to check whether the writer gives one more weight.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
The crucial turn is that the difficulty apparently discouraged few historians (paragraph 2). The writer then says few historians wanted to pursue women's legal history in the first place. That's the comparison we needed: lack of interest matters more than the practical obstacles. The ending presents our fragmentary knowledge as the result of that pattern.
- B
The language, handwriting, and volume of material really are difficult. But the writer explicitly limits their importance as an explanation. Describing the difficulty at length doesn't make it the main cause.
- C
Earlier scholars' reliance on these sources explains limits in their work. The explanation emphasized for the continuing shortage is different: few historians start with women's experiences as the subject they want to investigate.
- D
Few historians studying women's experiences doesn't establish that they formally define the field as excluding general law. That mistaken definition isn't attributed to them.
- E
This largely repeats the deficiency: there aren't enough studies. We want to know why the studies are scarce. The lack of interest explains the shortage; the shortage doesn't explain itself.
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