PrepTest 158, Section 4, Question 7
Newspaper article: Recently discovered clay tablets from southern(49 more words not shown)
The argument in the newspaper(5 more words not shown)
- Amost of the(12 more words not shown)
- Bevery civilization that(10 more words not shown)
- Chistorians generally believe(11 more words not shown)
- Dsome historians are(9 more words not shown)
- Ethe Sumerian civilization(7 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
How old is the Sumerian literature we're comparing these tablets with?
The Egyptian tablets date to between 3300 and 3200 B.C., and one appears to contain literature. That's an interesting discovery. But if historians already place Sumerian literature at 5000 B.C., a tablet from roughly 3300 B.C. wouldn't threaten the Sumerians' claim to being first. With B.C. dates, 5000 is earlier than 3300.
What we’re looking for
So the missing information concerns the other side of the timeline. To challenge the belief that Sumerians created literature first, this discovery needs to reach back far enough to compete with the date historians assign to Sumerian literature. The assumption question should give us a connection like that. Finding more Egyptian tax records won't fix a missing comparison of literary dates.
Working the answers
- A
We don't need most of the untranslated tablets to contain literature. One relevant literary tablet can matter to a claim about who was first. Adding a large number of literary works wouldn't solve the timing problem if the Sumerian literature were still much earlier.
- B
A universal rule connecting tax records with other written records isn't needed. We already have a particular tablet that appears to contain literature. The argument concerns that discovery's effect on the historical timeline, not what every tax-recording civilization must also have written.
- CCorrect
If historians generally don't place Sumerian literature before 3300 B.C., the Egyptian tablets reach back to the relevant period. That makes it possible for this discovery to challenge the accepted priority of Sumerian literature.
Compare that with our 5000 B.C. example. If historians already accepted Sumerian literature from that earlier date, these Egyptian tablets wouldn't challenge their view. C supplies the necessary background about what historians believe. It doesn't by itself prove that Egyptian literature definitely came first; the conclusion only says the discovery challenges the existing belief.
- D
The argument doesn't require historians to doubt the tablets' authenticity. Doubt would make it harder to use them to challenge the accepted account. The reasoning can proceed without anyone raising that objection.
- E
When the Sumerian civilization began is different from when it created literature. It could have existed for a long time before producing literary works. The argument needs information about literary priority, not a requirement that the civilization itself arose in this exact hundred-year interval.
More Necessary Assumption questions
Learn the LSAT our way
Our platform drills Necessary Assumption questions at your level and adjusts as you improve.