Q18 - Historian: Those who claim that Shakespeare

[mgw6g3]

Can somebody please explain why A is wrong and why D is correct?

[hcxie87]

Answer choice A is wrong simply because, if you read closely, the historian never actually denies the claim that Shakespeare did not write the plays. He's just saying the claims are motivated by snobbery.

Answer choice D is correct because it attacks the "PURELY by snobbery" part of the Historian's conclusion. It suggests that there might be other reasons (such as legitimate evidence) that would motivate people to challenge Shakespeare's authorship, that they were not motivated only by snobbery.

Hope this helps!

[ohthatpatrick]

Question type: Flaw

ARGUMENT CORE
conclusion
People who say Shakes didn't write those plays are just being snobs.

evidence
Shakes was from low class people. The people accusing are descendants of high-class people.

ANALYSIS
The missing logic link would be
"If a descendant of a high-class person criticizes a descendant of a low-class person, then it must be motivated by snobbery."

How would we debate that the accusations are NOT motivated by snobbery?
- OF COURSE the descendants are bringing charges. THEY'RE the ones most likely to have access to evidence that their ancestors had something to do with writing the plays
- WHY DO YOU ASSUME that the accusation is snobbery? Couldn't it just be a desire to communicate the legitimate truth about who wrote the plays attributed to Shakes?

ANSWER CHOICES
(A) The author never assumes that the claim is false. The author might agree that Shakes did NOT really write all his plays, but still feel like the people telling us are doing so purely because of snobbery. I mean, it's human nature to think that this historian is probably skeptical of the accusations brought forth by the aristocrats' descendants.

But this answer accuses the author of assuming this conditional:
If motivated by snobbery --> claim must be false

The author is really assuming this conditional:
If claim comes from descendant of higher-class --> motivated by snobbery

(B) This is a weird and mean answer. It's basically correct, except it's not a flaw to assume this. If something is motivated PURELY by snobbery, then it is correct to take for granted that it is not ALSO motivated by something else.

(C) This would be a great answer if it were about "those who claim Shakespeare did NOT write the plays". That's the topic of the argument, not the people who DO give credit to Shakespeare.

(D) This sounds like, "What if the accusers are just motivated by getting the truth out of there?"

(E) This is the classic CIRCULAR reasoning answer. Wrong 98% of the time we see it. Know its common forms:
- assumes what it sets out to prove
- presupposes what it seeks to establish
- conclusion restates the premise

The correct answer is (D).

[magnoliagrandiflora6]

Shouldn't answer D read "fails to INCLUDE the possibility that there might be legitimate evidence motivating those who reject Shakespeare's authorship"? Isn't it already EXCLUDING that possibility? It doesn't make sense to me someone please explain!

[james.kim528]

Shouldn't answer D read "fails to INCLUDE the possibility that there might be legitimate evidence motivating those who reject Shakespeare's authorship"? Isn't it already EXCLUDING that possibility? It doesn't make sense to me someone please explain!

That is the flaw he has committed by failing to exclude the possibilities that there might be legitimate evidence.

In the argument the Historian doesn't exclude these possibilities instead he just assumes one motivation. There could be so many more, but he just jumps to one. Because he didn't exclude the other possible motivations in his argument, and just jumped to one conclusion-that they're motivated purely by snobbery-he has committed a flaw.

[andrewgong01]

Question type: Flaw

ARGUMENT CORE
conclusion
People who say Shakes didn't write those plays are just being snobs.

evidence
Shakes was from low class people. The people accusing are descendants of high-class people.

ANALYSIS
The missing logic link would be
"If a descendant of a high-class person criticizes a descendant of a low-class person, then it must be motivated by snobbery."

How would we debate that the accusations are NOT motivated by snobbery?
- OF COURSE the descendants are bringing charges. THEY'RE the ones most likely to have access to evidence that their ancestors had something to do with writing the plays
- WHY DO YOU ASSUME that the accusation is snobbery? Couldn't it just be a desire to communicate the legitimate truth about who wrote the plays attributed to Shakes?
But this answer accuses the author of assuming this conditional:
If motivated by snobbery --> claim must be false

The author is really assuming this conditional:
If claim comes from descendant of higher-class --> motivated by snobbery

(B) This is a weird and mean answer. It's basically correct, except it's not a flaw to assume this. If something is motivated PURELY by snobbery, then it is correct to take for granted that it is not ALSO motivated by something else.



The correct answer is (D).

I wanted to to add to "B" that the other give away why B is wrong is that "snobbery" is on the wrong side of the conditional. We want to conclude snobbery ( or, at least the author does) but Chocie B takes it for granted we have already proved snobbery. In other words, snobbery needs to be a necessary condition for us to even consider further into looking at the answer choice .

in other words, "Takes for granted that anyone who is a descendants of an aristocrat is motivated purely by snobbery" would be correct since snobbery is on the necessary condition side. Because of the way Answer Choice B is set up where it talks about historical evidence and the stimulus does not mention historical evidence I don't think there's a way to re-write "B" in a conditional to conclude snobbery by appealing to the historical evidence fact. This is because "B" is phrased as an assumption so we need to go from the premise to the conclusion; however, good historical evidence was never in the stimulus so it would read really out of scope to say the author assumes "If no historical evidence [which was never mentioned], you must be motivated by snobbery"

Choice "D" allows us to bring in the historical fact (unlike a modified version of B I am proposing above) because it is not phrased as pointing out a gap; rather it is phrased as another possibility, which, if true, weakens the argument. I