June 2000 LR Sec.1 #20: Need help w/ explanation please! Forum

[norcal123456]

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[omninode]

One of the most vexing problems in historiography is dating an event when the usual sources offer conflicting chronologies of the event. Historians should attempt to minimize the number of competing sources, perhaps by eliminating the less credible ones. Once this is achieved and several sources are left, as often happens, historians may try, though on occasion unsuccessfully, to determine independently of the usual sources which date is more likely to be right.

Which one of the following inferences is most strongly supported by the information above?

A. We have no plausible chronology of most of the events for which attempts have been made by historians to determine the right date.

B. Some of the events for which there are conflicting chronologies and for which attempts have been made by historians to determine the right date cannot be dated reliably by historians.

C. Attaching a reliable date to any event requires determining which of several conflicting chronologies is more likely to be true.

D. Determining independently of the usual sources which of several conflicting chronologies is more likely to be right is an ineffective way of dating events.

E. The soundest approach to dating an event for which the usual sources give conflicting chronologies is to undermine the credibility of as many of these sources as possible.

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Can someone please give a detailed explanation of why A is wrong? I know that B is correct but I really want to find out the reason behind why A is wrong.

I'd highly appreciate it, thank you!

A is wrong because of the part where it applies the problem to MOST events historians have tried to date, whereas the paragraph above only implies that it happens in SOME cases, not most cases.

Hope that helps.

[itookashot]

One of the most vexing problems in historiography is dating an event when the usual sources offer conflicting chronologies of the event. Historians should attempt to minimize the number of competing sources, perhaps by eliminating the less credible ones. Once this is achieved and several sources are left, as often happens, historians may try, though on occasion unsuccessfully, to determine independently of the usual sources which date is more likely to be right.

Which one of the following inferences is most strongly supported by the information above?

A. We have no plausible chronology of most of the events for which attempts have been made by historians to determine the right date.
....

The stimulus does not assure that we do NOT have plausible chronology. Instead, it says historians can eliminate less credible sources and historians can depend on the left sources to determine the possibly right date ---> left sources may be plausible.

Hope this helps. I had probs with inference questions too. In my experience, the only way to tackle this type of question is slowing down and paying due attention to details.

[lawgod]

A is incorrect since the passage is only speaking about events which have multiple sources which suggest multiple dates. However, MOST incidents may not have multiple sources, so they are not the subject of the passage.

[norcal123456]

thanks everyone!!