PrepTest 111, Section 2, Question 5
Of the more than one thousand people who(452 more words not shown)
Based on the passage, which(22 more words not shown)
- ARoyalist memoirs of(15 more words not shown)
- BRepublican memoirs of(17 more words not shown)
- CMany memoirs of(12 more words not shown)
- DMany memoirs of(17 more words not shown)
- EMany memoirs of(11 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
These are the historians who question the memoirs because so much time passed before they were written. Memories can lose or confuse facts, and political commitments can distort the account. We want that skeptical view, keeping it separate from the later scholars' response about checking credibility.
Working the answers
- A
They don't say royalists remember events more accurately. Favorable publication conditions in paragraph 1 aren't evidence of greater factual reliability.
- B
Nor do they rank republicans as less biased. Their concern about retrospective, partisan accounts doesn't favor either camp.
- CCorrect
The stated risk of “loss or confusion of facts” supports the suspicion that many memoirs contain factual inaccuracies. That's the kind of problem these historians worry about. It doesn't require the much stronger claim that every memoir is false from beginning to end.
- D
This offers reassurance about accounts free from bias. It doesn't express the concern attributed to these historians. They might accept some accurate material, but their stated doubts don't establish this favorable assessment of many accounts.
- E
Inaccurate and unverifiable are different. Comparing an account with other evidence could reveal that it's wrong. We also aren't told that most of the material in many memoirs cannot be checked. Doubting reliability doesn't supply either part of this claim.
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