PrepTest 120, Section 4, Question 18

What we’re looking for

Working the answers

• A

  Being more critical of one's own society than of other societies doesn't establish inaccuracy. Perhaps one's own society has more problems, or the playwright knows those problems better. We also aren't told that these plays always depict the playwrights' own societies. This comparison doesn't explain the historians' distrust.

• B
  Correct

  The historians believe playwrights exaggerate a society's weaknesses for dramatic effect. That gives us the reason to be cautious: a hostile society makes the innocent protagonist's struggle more dramatic and can draw the audience's sympathy. If the playwright magnifies the hostility to achieve that effect, the depiction may not be a reliable account of the actual society.

  This isn't a blanket rule that every sympathetic protagonist makes a play historically worthless. It is a specific belief about distortion for dramatic purposes, and that belief helps explain the historians' view of these works.

• C

  This says plays tend to provide useful information about the society and time in which they were written. That offers a reason to use plays as historical sources, not the reason these historians distrust the particular portrayals described. Also, a play could reveal its author's era while inaccurately portraying a different era in which its story is set.

• D

  Saying plays often contain serious revelations of the societies they portray doesn't explain why the historians withhold that judgment from these plays. We need the reason for their caution, not a general endorsement of plays as revealing sources.

• E

  We don't know how popular the plays in question are. Even if the historians believed only the most popular plays could be accurate, we would still need to know whether these particular works meet that condition. E doesn't establish the reason for rejecting them.