PrepTest 121, Section 1, Question 21
Catmull: Although historians consider themselves to be social(39 more words not shown)
The reasoning in Catmull's argument(5 more words not shown)
- Adraws a conclusion(11 more words not shown)
- Bconcludes, solely on(22 more words not shown)
- Cpresumes, without providing(13 more words not shown)
- Dbases its conclusion(6 more words not shown)
- Emistakes a necessary(19 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Different interpretations of an event aren't the same as inventing the event.
Imagine two historians discussing the Boston Tea Party. One emphasizes disorderly behavior; the other emphasizes resistance to taxation. They could disagree about how to understand the event while still investigating something that happened. Their disagreement doesn't turn the Boston Tea Party into a fictional adventure.
That's why the comparison with novelists bothers me. A novelist can simply invent a character or an event. Disagreeing historians might instead be trying to work out what happened from incomplete evidence. We haven't been given a reason to treat those activities as the same.
What we’re looking for
For the flaw question, my first thought is that this is an unfair comparison. The answer might put that objection differently, so check it against Catmull's actual reasoning: what does the disagreement establish, and what does Catmull claim it establishes?
Working the answers
- A
The conclusion adds something to the evidence: historians supposedly never determine what happened. That isn't just a repetition of the premise that historians disagree. An argument such as “This account is accurate because this account tells the truth” would merely repeat its claim. Catmull instead makes an unsupported move from one claim to another.
- BCorrect
This identifies the step behind the comparison that initially bothered me. Historians reach different conclusions, so Catmull says none determines what actually happened. But why couldn't one historian be right and another wrong? Or different accounts each capture something true?
Disagreement alone doesn't establish that every conclusion is false. Catmull would need evidence about the accounts themselves to dismiss them all as fiction. B explains the reasoning error more precisely than simply saying the comparison with novelists is unfair.
- C
Catmull doesn't say the stories are worthless. The passage even describes them as interesting. Something could be valuable as entertainment while being fictional. The disputed claim concerns whether historians determine what happened, not whether anything they produce has value.
- D
Historians can consider themselves social scientists and still disagree with one another. Those claims aren't opposites. The problem is what Catmull concludes from them, not that accepting one premise forces us to reject another.
- E
This would involve treating something that truth requires as enough to guarantee truth. Catmull isn't showing that historians meet some requirement and then declaring their conclusions true. The argument moves toward the opposite verdict: their disagreement supposedly means none gets the truth. B describes that actual mistake.
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