#12 - Historian: The early Egyptian pharaohs spent as much

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Complete Question Explanation

Method of Reasoning—AP. The correct answer choice is (A)

The author justifies Egyptian expenditure on ceremonial architecture by observing that the psychological effects of such architecture served a particular political purpose—to maintain people’s loyalty without military coercion. The entire argument is condensed in the second sentence of the stimulus, where the premise indicator “for” is particularly useful in differentiating between premise and conclusion:

• Premise: If people under a pharaoh’s rule could be made to realize the extent of their ruler’s mastery of the physical world, their loyalty could be maintained without military coercion.
  
  Conclusion: The early Egyptian expenditure on largely ceremonial architecture was not frivolous.

Because the argument structure in Method—AP questions tends to be more complex than usual, it is critical to identify each argument part correctly and understand how they relate to each other before attacking the answer choices. Based on the analysis above, the claim whose function we are asked to describe is a conclusion . This prephrase alone is sufficient to eliminate every single answer choice except for (A), which is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice. The statement referenced in the question stem is a conclusion (“this was not mere frivolousness”), supported by the observation that ceremonial architecture helped the early Egyptian pharaohs maintain people’s loyalty, i.e. the architecture had certain useful psychological effects.

Answer choice (B): This answer can be immediately eliminated, since the statement referenced in the question stem does not support any other statement.

Answer choice (C): This is the Reverse answer. The fact that the loyalty of people under a pharaoh’s rule was maintained without military force is precisely why the author argues that spending wealth on ceremonial architecture was not frivolous. This answer choice reverses the relationship between the two argument parts.

Answer choice (D): This answer choice can be immediately eliminated, because the author makes no attempt to illustrate a boarder principle here: both the premise and the conclusion refer to early Egypt alone.

Answer choice (E): While the author implicitly justifies the pharaoh’s policy of spending wealth on ceremonial architecture, she does so by describing the political utility of such architecture. Furthermore, we have no way of knowing if the structures had military utility only: they maintained loyalty without military coercion, but could have served some other purpose too.