PrepTest 113, Section 2, Question 10
Mark: To convey an understanding of past events,(104 more words not shown)
Carla does which one of(6 more words not shown)
- Acontests Mark's understanding(3 more words not shown)
- Bquestions Mark's presupposition(7 more words not shown)
- Cargues that the(11 more words not shown)
- Dquestions whether Mark(9 more words not shown)
- Egives reason to(10 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A foot soldier can know what the battle felt like without understanding the whole battle.
That is my first question for Mark. A participant's fear, confusion or immediate experience could be valuable to a historian, but it might not explain the generals' strategy or why the battle happened. Mark wants historians to capture firsthand experience. We shouldn't assume that this one kind of knowledge automatically supplies every kind of understanding.
Carla raises a different concern: whose experience will the historian choose? A general and a foot soldier could see different things. So could a French soldier and an English soldier. Carla argues that choosing a perspective would produce bias and recommends general, objective accounts instead.
What we’re looking for
I'd want to ask Carla why the historian couldn't include several perspectives. Mark hasn't explicitly said to pick one person and ignore everyone else. But we don't have to settle that objection to describe her response. The question asks what she does in disputing Mark: she identifies a selection problem and says that carrying out his recommendation would distort the resulting history.
Working the answers
- A
Carla doesn't accuse Mark of misunderstanding what happened at Waterloo or getting a historical fact wrong. She challenges his proposed way of writing history. Knowing the events and choosing how to represent them are different issues.
- B
She doesn't say it is impossible to understand another person's feelings. Her questions concern whose perspective the historian selects and whether that selection biases the account. She could accept that a historian can convey someone's experience while still objecting to the resulting emphasis.
- CCorrect
The selection is choosing which participant's perspective to convey. The distortion is the biased version of history Carla says would result from that choice. Her examples—general or foot soldier, French or English—show why she regards the selection as a problem.
C describes that move without requiring us to agree that every use of participants' perspectives must be biased. We're identifying Carla's criticism, not proving it succeeds.
- D
“Deplores” means strongly disapproves of. Mark doesn't describe a kind of historical writing he condemns; he recommends an approach he favors. Carla therefore isn't correcting his description of some disliked writing. D supplies an attack by Mark that never occurs.
- E
Carla doesn't discuss Mark's career, income or personal advantage. An argument about professional self-interest might claim he favors this method because it benefits his work, but she makes no such claim. Her concern is the bias produced by choosing a perspective, not the motive behind his recommendation.
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