#12 - In a scene in an ancient Greek play, Knights, the

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[lathlee]

i absoultely do not understand how D) is the correct answer. considering there is no direct information given to disprove In "ancient Greece, people did not read silently to themselves." This is a scene in an ancient Greek play and the readers do not know at all when this play , knight, was made (could be made in middle ages or 1800s), the reader cannot be certain that

the writer of this play imagined what from his/her imagination in an ancient Greek would be the culture of reading be alike

or

actually wrote Knight from ancient Greek time

[lathlee]

Is this it ? question asks as .... "which one can most justifiably be rejected ? "

Even though this is cannot be true qustion type (where the answer choice DIRECTLY and CLEARLY and DEMONSTRABLY GOES AGAINST the Info in the stimulus), but in this case, the question asked in a format of we have to choose the most unlikely scenario possible among avialble option, since it is demonstrated in ancient Greece PLAY (EVEN though only in FICTIONAL PLAY): People in the play DID READ outloud , this makes D) as correct.

But still, this is a bad question set if anything very bad question set, since it was never proved in a STEM (IT SAID in an ancient Greece play, fictional play) demonstrably that IN anywhere in the stem that unfictional world of ancient Greece(as the correct answer stated) Greece people Read silently or outloud.

[165OrBust]

Here was my train of thought on this one:

Stimulus Summary: Demosthenes reads the tablet to himself and expresses his amazement at the contents (note: he does not read its contents aloud, but rather “expresses his amazement” aloud). His companion asks him what is written on the tablets.

Question Stem: Fourth family “cannot be true”. We need to find the answer which, according to the information in the stimulus, “cannot” be true. Wrong answers “could be true” and can therefore include information that does not appear in the stimulus.

My Answering Strategy: To be honest, I couldn’t come up with a prephrase, so I dove right into the possible answers. First, I excluded any answers that did not include information in the stimulus. Once I narrowed down my options, I found that I was having difficulty focusing on the “cannot be true” element and (possibly wasting valuable time) resorted to negating key terms to determine whether the negated phrase “could” occur and therefore be the correct answer. In hindsight, I should have just jumped to my third step where I looked at the strength of language to determine which questions “could” be true and therefore be discounted.

Possible Answers:
A. The stimulus said nothing about the characters’ ability to read, so I discounted this answer.
B. The stimulus said nothing about the characters’ basis in fact or fiction, so I discounted this answer.
C. I initially kept this as a contender because (1) it talks about reading aloud in Ancient Greek plays, and (2) I negated the statement “the reading aloud of written texts commonly occurred” and came up with “the reading aloud of texts did not commonly occur”, which is sort-of supported by the stimulus, but (3) because the strength of language in the original answer suggested that reading aloud “could not” occur, it did not meet the “cannot” be true yardstick so I discounted this answer.
D. I selected this as the correct answer because (1) it talks about reading silently to oneself in Ancient Greek plays, which is mentioned in the stimulus, (2) the logical opposite of “did not read silently to themselves” is “sometimes read silently to themselves”, a statement which is supported by the stimulus, and (3) the strength of language “did not read silently to themselves” meets the “cannot be true” yardstick because Demosthenes most certainly read silently to himself.
E. I initially kept this as a contender because (1) it talks about prophecies written on tablets in Ancient Greece (in hindsight I should have discounted this one because it isn’t about Ancient Greek “plays”, specifically), and (2) I negated the statement “only rarely were prophecies written on tablets” and came up with “written prophecies were often written on tablets”, a statement which is sort-of supported by the stimulus, but (3) because the strength of language in the original answer suggested that prophecies “could” be written on tablets, it did not meet the “cannot” be true yardstick so I discounted this answer.

If anyone can think of a more streamlined way to answer this question, please post it - this one was a bit of a time thief....

Happy studying!
Liz

[Claire Horan]

Hi Liz,

Great question--how could you streamline your problem-solving? I'd like to address this a bit abstractly so that you can apply the same reasoning to similar problems.

1) You tried to prephrase, but of course you couldn't guess what "cannot be true" without reading the answer choices. Here, you can't prephrase because there are too many conclusions that could and couldn't be drawn. Instead, just make sure you understand the stimulus, maybe by rereading and summarizing it quickly to yourself.

2) Also understand structurally what this stimulus is. It's an example. What types of things CAN be proved with an example? That X has happened at least once/sometimes. (An example shows that it cannot be true that X never happens.) What CAN'T be proved with an example? That X happens rarely, often, most of the time, always. Those things could be true.

3) Cross out any answer choice that COULD BE TRUE/COULD BE FALSE but you can't say for sure.

(A) One example does not tell us about ancient Greek plays generally. COULD BE TRUE

(B) There is nothing in the stimulus about whether the play is fictional or not. COULD BE TRUE

(C) The word "commonly" shows that this is the same as A. One example does not tell us about ancient Greek plays generally. COULD BE TRUE

(D) It CANNOT BE TRUE that something did not happen at all if the stimulus is an example of it happening.

(E) The word "rarely" shows that this is the same as A and C. One example does not tell us about ancient Greek plays generally. COULD BE TRUE

Even if you were uncomfortable about D because of the difference between ancient Greek plays and ancient Greece itself, the other answer choices have all been eliminated. D is the only possibility because it says that something never happened, which can be disproven by one example. Luckily, that's all the stimulus is: one example.

On the other hand, you shouldn't assume that an ancient Greek play shows nothing about ancient Greece because the actors wouldn't likely be doing things on stage that would be completely incomprehensible to their audience.

I hope this helps!

[165OrBust]

Thank you Claire,

That’s great advice, and, incidentally, hits on exactly what I’m trying to train myself to do! Attack the question based on the structure of the stimulus, and use the content of the stimulus to select between the remaining answers and/or confirm my final answer.

Many thanks!
Liz

[annrachweila]

Hi!
In order for D to be correct, should we make the assumption that "express amazement in its contents" is equivalent to reading out loud?

[Adam Tyson]

Just the opposite, actually, annrachweila! We can be sure that Demosthenes did NOT read the tablet's contents out loud, because if he had then his companion wouldn't have needed to ask for information about what it said and Demosthenes wouldn't need to explain what the oracle had written. Instead, "expresses his amazement" means he was saying things out loud like "wow!" and "that's crazy!" while reading the content silently to himself. This is why we can select answer D - it appears that at least in this play, someone did read silently to himself! Answer D seems entirely unlikely to be true - why would you have a character in a play behave in a way that is so completely inconsistent with societal norms of the time? We can most justifiably reject that idea that silent reading never happened, because it DID happen in this case.

[Tw07]

Just want to make sure I understand the question stem correctly - if we ever see "which one can most justifiably be rejected on the basis of the statements above", we should always interpret that to "what must be false", is that correct?

[Claire Horan]

Hi Tw07,

Yes, exactly! Although the question stem is worded in a more nuanced way, you will not go wrong looking for the answer that must be false.