PrepTest 158, Section 2, Question 10
Historian: In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the(52 more words not shown)
The historian's argument is most(8 more words not shown)
- Afails to address(14 more words not shown)
- Bconcludes, simply because(15 more words not shown)
- Cdraws a restricted(12 more words not shown)
- Dtakes for granted(23 more words not shown)
- Etakes for granted(19 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Similar buildings suggest a connection. Do they establish where the Swahili got the design?
The Swahili built tombs with large pillars and paneled facades. The Oromo also have those structures, and the design is unknown among the other peoples with whom the Swahili had contact. I can see why the historian suspects Oromo influence. But I'd still want to know whether the architectural idea could have come from somewhere else, perhaps through another group.
What we’re looking for
The question asks for a weakness in the historian's reasoning. My initial concern is the source of the design: the resemblance doesn't, by itself, establish the proposed influence. Keep an open mind about how an answer exposes that gap. A possibility that sounds related to our objection might not actually undermine the conclusion.
Working the answers
- A
The Swahili could borrow a design even if the Oromo used it for a different purpose. Large pillars and paneled facades could inspire Swahili tombs without the Oromo structures themselves being tombs. The argument concerns cultural influence, so identical use isn't required to make the proposed connection.
- B
Where are we told that the Oromo construction came first? We aren't. B describes an argument that establishes an earlier event and treats that timing alone as proof of a cause. Here, the missing information about the order of construction is part of the problem, not a stated premise the historian relies on.
- C
Drawing a modest conclusion isn't a mistake merely because stronger evidence might support more. If the evidence established extensive influence, it could also support influence “to some extent.” In any event, the problem here is whether the stated influence has been established, not that the historian has been too cautious about its size.
- D
This is tempting because it sounds like the alternative-source objection. But suppose a third civilization invented the design, influenced the Oromo, and the Oromo then influenced the Swahili. The historian's conclusion could still be right. The Oromo don't have to be the original inventors in order to pass the design along.
D only raises the possibility that someone else created the first tombs. It doesn't establish that the Swahili got the design independently of the Oromo. Distinguish the original source of an idea from the people who later transmit it.
- ECorrect
The historian hasn't established that the Oromo were constructing these tombs before the Swahili. If the Swahili built them first, the resemblance wouldn't support the proposed story that Swahili builders adopted an existing Oromo design.
This targets the direction of the influence more directly than D. A third civilization could fit into a chain leading through the Oromo to the Swahili. But the construction history needs to put the alleged model in place before the later builders follow it. We don't have to prove the Swahili influenced the Oromo instead; the missing timing is enough to expose the historian's unsupported assumption.
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