RC use of term "phrase", and a question Forum

[dontsaywhatyoumean]

The 2007 September Comparative Reading passage 2, question 11 states, the phrase "scholarly monographs that sap the vitality of history" plays a role similar to which of the following phrases in that passage's overall argument?

Anyway, the full sentence is "Historians require undergraduates to read scholarly monographs that sap the vitality of history; they visit on students what was visited on them in graduate school."

One of the answer choices (c) states, "Lawyers write as they see other lawyers write" (line 39). I initially chose this as the correct answer, because I thought that both phrases played the role of explaining why each profession conducts themselves as they do (for historians it is because their professors taught them with this type of material (so they will do the same onto their own students), and for lawyers, they write like this because they witness other lawyers write like this). In both cases a matter of modelling behaviour.

The correct answer choice however was B (Conformity is a virtue, creativity suspect, humor forbidden, and voice mute", which in retrospect, seems tremendously more obvious as the correct answer, but I'm wondering why the other answer choice (C) is not also correct.

Is it because the word "phrase" refers only to the "scholarly monographs that sap the vitality of history", and not the rest of the full sentence? In that case I can see why answer choice B is correct. Clearly both play the role of describing the written material in a similar way.

Or does "phrase" still refer to the entire sentence, and do those phrases not play that role in the passages' overall arguments? Are they not premises, but just extraneous information? If the overall argument is that the writing suffers, would a contributor to its perpetuation really be a premise?

Thanks

[Alive97]

The word phrase only refers to that section in quotes.

[dontsaywhatyoumean]

The word phrase only refers to that section in quotes.

Haha, thank you so much! I had no idea.