#16 - The prevailing view among historians

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi GGIBA003,

The merchants and nobles aren't directly impacting the peasants; they are giving us more information about the clergy. If it's true that the clergy didn't report that the merchants and nobles were particularly religious, we can't say that they would report that the peasants were religious no matter what. Answer choice (C) opens the possibility that the clergy would report that someone was not particularly religious. Our stimulus says that the author thinks that the clergy were exaggerating people's religious devotion. If they don't always do so, we have more of a doubt that they would have done so in the case of the peasants.

Hope that helps.

[g_lawyered]

Yes, that makes sense Rachael. Thanks for clarifying that.

[quan-tang@hotmail.com]

If C is the correct answer then A and D are not less right.

A shows clergy did not exaggerate people's dedication to religion as they recorded unreligious activitis in detail.

D shows theres no ground to believe clergy has religious attitude to exaggerate others dediction to religion as historian clearly did not survey everyone. therefore also undermine the Premise 2: Clergy were obsessed with religion.

C is not stronger argument than either A or D.

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Quan,

Answer A doesn't show that the clergy did not exaggerate the amount of the peasants' devotion. Just because there are some documents detailing nonreligious activities, it is still possible that the clergy exaggerated the amount of religious devotion.

There are two problems with Answer D. First, we don't know whether the historians have consulted all of the relevant surviving records, so we don't even know if this answer would apply to the argument. Second, even if it did apply and we knew that the historians hadn't consulted all of the relevant surviving records, that could actually strengthen the argument's claim that there is reason to doubt the prevailing historians' view.