#15 - Concept Reference, Must Be True, Author's Perspective

[Jonathan Evans]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (C).

This question asks how the author of Passage A would respond to the historical analysis found in Passage B. Let's start by describing the historical analysis of Passage B. We could prephrase:

• Passage B is a contemporary academic/historical discussion of the manner in which a Roman emperor used domesticity and traditional gender roles for political ends.

How would the author of Passage A react to an excerpt such as this? We need to find evidence. Where does the author of Passage A talk about contemporary historical scholarship about women? Lines 12-16 describe scholarship that has a lot in common with what we just described. To wit, "[A]rticles about women gave way to explorations of how an imagined domesticity [...] shaped culture and politics."

Passage B seems like just such an exploration of how imagined domesticity shaped culture and politics, in this case, that of the Roman Empire.

Next, we need to know how the author of Passage A feels about such scholarship. The answer is in lines 29 ff. The author of passage A is concerned that scholarship such as this overlooks the "particular ways in which individual women engaged their worlds."

Thus, we could use for our prephrase:

• The author of Passage A may think that Passage B elides the contributions of individual women.

Now let's compare this prephrase to our answer choices:

• Answer choice (A): There is no evidence to suggest ancient conceptions of gender are different from modern conceptions.
  
  Answer choice (B) There is no evidence to suggest that the author of Passage A is concerned with masculinity per se or its omission.
  
  Answer choice (C) This is the correct answer choice. This answer matches our prephrase that Passage B neglects details about individual women in service of a larger narrative.
  
  Answer choice (D) There is no evidence concerning the comparative role of domesticity in politics.
  
  Answer choice (E) There is no evidence to suggest the author of Passage A is concerned with new knowledge about Augustus's martial laws.

[T.B.Justin]

Hey Jon,

This helped, thank you!

I had this down to B and C and selected B incorrectly, as I thought that the mention of masculinity (ln 12-13) as part of where the dramatic integration of women's study transitioned into, however as you pointed out the author does not offer an opinion of any value of that masculinity, so I get that the author is more or less not concerned with masculinity or its omission.

[tkt25!]

Hi!

I chose D as I assumed that because the author of Passage B is concerned with discussing domesticity and how the Roman family paid particular attention to "relocating women in the domestic context" that D made the most sense. I have gone over this a bit and I am still lost why C is correct and D is wrong. I understand why A, B, E are wrong. Like I think to myself that C is incorrect because Passage B does discuss how particular women lived during the reign of Augustus. Passage B refers to women as being "significant participants in the system" and how their good behaviour partially informed the health of the state, etc. How is that not substantive information?

Thank you! Any help would be greatly appreciated

[Jeff Wren]

Hi tkt,

First, if you haven't already done so, please read Jonathan's explanation for this question posted at the beginning of this forum thread, as it provides a really good discussion of how to approach this question step by step.

This question is asking how the author of Passage A would feel about the historical analysis in Passage B. The key to correctly answering this question (and to comparative reading questions generally) is to understand how the passages are related to each other. Passage B is an example of the type of gender based historical study discussed in Passage A, so you need to know how the author of Passage A feels about these gender based historical studies in order to answer the question. In the final paragraph of Passage A, the author states that these new gender based historical studies may have lost an important element (even though it has also added something helpful), that loss being the details of exactly how women lived their day to day lives. Answer C captures this sentiment from Passage A.

You wrote:

Passage B refers to women as being "significant participants in the system" and how their good behaviour partially informed the health of the state, etc. How is that not substantive information?

The problem is that Answer C states "substantive information about how particular (i.e. individual) women lived during the reign" (my emphasis). Describing women's roles in general is not providing information about specific women and details about those women's individual lives.

Be very careful while reading on the LSAT. Every word matters!