PrepTest 114, Section 2, Question 4
A favorable biography of a politician omits certain(63 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(13 more words not shown)
- AAn author of(22 more words not shown)
- BAn author of(20 more words not shown)
- CAn author of(18 more words not shown)
- DAn author of(25 more words not shown)
- EAn author of(21 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
“I didn't know” doesn't settle whether the biographer did the job properly.
Imagine a biography praising a politician's public service while leaving out a serious scandal documented in public records. I'd want to know why it was missing. Was the omission deliberate, or did the writer genuinely not know? The passage gives us the writer's defense: the missing facts were unknown to him, so he says he isn't accountable for misleading readers.
Still, being available isn't the same as being known. A fact could sit in a public archive without being common knowledge. That makes the defense worth considering. On the other hand, someone writing an entire biography might have a responsibility to investigate the subject rather than rely only on what they already know.
What we’re looking for
The argument takes that second side: ignorance of this kind doesn't remove the blame. We could challenge it with a rule that blame requires an intention to mislead. But the question asks us to support the argument, so I want a principle connecting a biographer's responsibility to finding and including the available facts. The writer's lack of awareness should not excuse the misleading omission.
Working the answers
- A
Readers' overall impression that a biography is favorable or unfavorable is different from being misled by missing facts. A rule protecting the author from blame for that overall impression doesn't establish responsibility for the omission at issue. It doesn't give us the reason to blame this writer that the argument needs.
- B
This would make a deliberate intention to mislead a requirement for blame. The writer claims not to have known the facts, and the argument says that ignorance doesn't excuse the omission. B instead gives the defense a possible basis: without deliberate deception, its requirement for blame hasn't been met. That supports the objection we considered, not the argument's position.
- C
The missing facts here are incriminating and were left out of a favorable biography. C discusses omitted facts that would have supported the writer's view. That is a different case, and saying an author shouldn't be blamed in that case doesn't establish blame in this one.
- D
This requires the author to have been the only person with access to the omitted facts. But the passage says they were available to anyone. D's requirement would work against blaming this writer. We need responsibility for failing to include publicly available information, not a rule limited to exclusive access.
- ECorrect
This ties blame to exactly the situation described: a biography omits widely available facts, and the omission causes readers to be misled. The rule doesn't require the writer to have known the facts or intended the misperception. So the claimed ignorance doesn't remove responsibility under this principle.
That gives the argument its missing support. The relevant duty is to avoid misleading readers through this kind of omission, even when the writer says the facts were unknown to him.
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