PrepTest 127, Section 3, Question 17
Of all the Arabic epic poems that have(42 more words not shown)
The argument is most vulnerable(7 more words not shown)
- Arelies on evidence(7 more words not shown)
- Brelies on a(7 more words not shown)
- Ctakes for granted(6 more words not shown)
- Dtakes what may(9 more words not shown)
- Etakes a sufficient(6 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
The claim is about continued public performance. Other Arabic epics might still be read or performed privately; what sets Sirat Bani Hilal apart here is that it is the only once-popular epic still publicly performed.
It also differs in how it has usually been performed: sung rather than merely recited. Does that explain its survival? Perhaps, but the author hasn't shown that the music is the main reason. Maybe people particularly like the story. Knowing that a work has a feature and has lasted doesn't establish that the feature made it last.
Imagine pointing to a successful seven-book fantasy series and concluding that having seven books is what made it successful. The number of books and the success could both be real while readers were drawn chiefly to the characters or the imagined world. Likewise, the musical form and continued performance of this epic can occur together without music being the main explanation.
What we’re looking for
That is the flaw I would look for: the argument selects a difference associated with the surviving epic and treats that difference as the cause of its longevity.
Working the answers
- A
Nothing establishes that the evidence is impossible to corroborate. We could in principle investigate which works are publicly performed and whether performers sing or recite them. The problem is the explanation inferred from those facts, not an inherent impossibility of checking them.
- B
No source with a potentially distorting interest is identified. The author makes an unsupported causal inference, but that doesn't by itself establish that the underlying information comes from a biased source. B needs a feature of the evidence that we aren't given.
- CCorrect
The work that remains publicly performed is also usually sung, while most other epics were recited. The author treats that association as establishing that its musical character is the main reason it has lasted. Other distinctive features of the work could explain its continued appeal. The passage doesn't isolate music as the cause.
- D
Whether the epic is still performed and whether it is sung are presented as facts about performance. The author isn't citing people's opinion that the work is good and treating that opinion as an established fact. A work's popularity is part of the subject matter; popular opinion isn't the stated evidence.
- E
The argument doesn't give a rule that some feature guarantees an outcome and then declare that feature required. It compares the performance history of this epic with others and infers a cause. The word “only” identifies the sole surviving public performance tradition in the group; it doesn't by itself turn the reasoning into the mistake E describes.
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