PrepTest 119, Section 4, Question 1
Considering that Mark Twain is Samuel Clemens, I(25 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(10 more words not shown)
- AMost people probably(7 more words not shown)
- BEveryone who knows(13 more words not shown)
- CMost people do(8 more words not shown)
- DMany people believe(5 more words not shown)
- ESome people know(9 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Knowing the writer's books doesn't mean knowing all his names.
Suppose I've heard of Mark Twain and know that he wrote books, but the name Samuel Clemens means nothing to me. There's nothing strange about my knowing that Twain was a writer without knowing that Clemens was one. I haven't realized they're the same person.
The author knows that connection and seems surprised that everyone else's knowledge doesn't reflect it. But people can know a fact about someone under one name without recognizing the same person under another. A pen name is a name a writer uses instead of their own name; recognizing the pen name needn't involve knowing the writer's original name.
What we’re looking for
To resolve this puzzle, I'd look for that missing connection in people's knowledge: most people don't know that Twain and Clemens are the same person. Both observations can then be true without anything mysterious happening.
Working the answers
- A
Reading the books isn't required to know that their author was a writer. Someone could know Mark Twain's name from school without having read his work. More importantly, this doesn't explain why recognition differs between the two names. We need to know whether people connect them.
- B
This starts with the small group who already know that Clemens was a writer. Perhaps everyone in that group recognizes the name Twain too. That still leaves the larger group we're trying to understand: people who recognize Twain as a writer but don't recognize Clemens as one.
- CCorrect
Most people don't know the names belong to the same person. That explains the difference: they recognize the writer under the name Mark Twain, but the name Samuel Clemens doesn't bring that knowledge with it. The author supplied the connection to us; C explains why other people haven't made it.
- D
We don't have two conflicting beliefs here. Not knowing that Clemens was a writer isn't the same as believing that he wasn't one. People may simply lack the connection between the names. A general claim about conflicting beliefs doesn't explain this particular gap in knowledge.
- E
This tells us that some people do know about the pen name. Fine, but the puzzle concerns why very few people recognize Clemens as a writer when almost everyone recognizes Twain. Learning that some people know the connection doesn't explain why so many others lack the relevant knowledge.
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