PrepTest 146, Section 1, Question 2
In 1893, an excavation led by Wilhelm Dörpfeld(59 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(7 more words not shown)
- AIn 1893, scholars(11 more words not shown)
- BThe Iliad does(10 more words not shown)
- CDörpfeld's team found(13 more words not shown)
- DThe city excavated(14 more words not shown)
- EThe Iliad accurately(7 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A ten-year war isn't necessarily a ten-year siege. The author uses the city's small size to rule out Dörpfeld's identification: this city couldn't have withstood a siege lasting ten years. But what if the armies fought elsewhere for most of the war and besieged the city only in the final year? The war could last as long as the Iliad says without requiring this city to withstand ten years of siege.
What we’re looking for
That's the assumption I'd initially look for: the war involved a siege of the duration the author uses to exclude this site. The question asks what the argument requires. We need something this reasoning depends on, rather than a historical detail that might happen to be true about Troy.
Working the answers
- A
The author could reject this particular site whether scholars had one alternative, several alternatives, or none. The reasoning concerns whether this city fits the war's duration. It doesn't need to establish that it was the only possible candidate known in 1893.
- B
The poem could contain location clues, such as a nearby river, without changing the author's reasoning about size and duration. The argument doesn't rely on the absence of geographical clues. It uses one particular feature of the account to rule out this site.
- C
A siege might have occurred at the site without being the ten-year siege the author has in mind. The author doesn't need there to be no evidence of any siege whatsoever. Finding evidence of a shorter siege, for example, would leave the stated size-and-duration argument available.
- D
Maybe the city had several features scholars associated with Troy. That might explain Dörpfeld's belief, but the author doesn't depend on that explanation to reject it. The argument could still use the city's size against the identification even if Dörpfeld's original reasons were weak or unclear.
- ECorrect
This addresses a different dependence from the siege issue I predicted: can we trust the poem's ten-year duration? What if a one-year war became a ten-year war in the telling for dramatic effect? Then an inability to withstand ten years wouldn't rule the city out.
The author treats the duration reported in the Iliad as a constraint a real candidate for Troy must meet. That reasoning requires the account to be accurate about the war's duration. It doesn't require every detail of the poem to be accurate, but it does rely on this one.
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