Critical Reasoning

Historian: In the Drindian Empire, censuses were conducted annually to determine the population of each village. Village census records for the last half of the 1600's are remarkably complete. This very completeness makes one point stand out; in five different years, villages overwhelmingly reported significant population declines. Tellingly, each of those five years immediately followed an increase in a certain Drindian tax. This tax, which was assessed on villages, was computed by the central government using the annual census figures. Obviously, whenever the tax went up, villages had an especially powerful economic incentive to minimize the number of people they recorded; and concealing the size of a village's population from government census takers would have been easy. Therefore, it is reasonable to think that the reported declines did not happen.

In the historian's argument, the two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?

A. The first supplies a context for the historian's argument; the second acknowledges a consideration that has been used to argue against the position the historian seeks to establish.
B. The first presents evidence to support the position that the historian seeks to establish; the second acknowledges a consideration that has been used to argue against that position.
C. The first provides a context for certain evidence that supports the position that the historian seeks to establish; the second is that position.
D. The first is a position for which the historian argues; the second is an assumption that serves as the basis of that argument.
E. The first is an assumption that the historian explicitly makes in arguing for a certain position; the second acknowledges a consideration that calls that assumption into question.

The answer is C.

But can someone explain how the first bold face provides a context for certain evidence that supports the position that the historian seeks to establish? I don't think it is supporting the position in any way, in fact if the census records are complete (very thorough), then how can the reported declines have not happened?

Can any expert please explain this in detail.

gmatrant wrote:But can someone explain how the first bold face provides a context for certain evidence that supports the position that the historian seeks to establish? I don't think it is supporting the position in any way, in fact if the census records are complete (very thorough), then how can the reported declines have not happened?

Can any expert please explain this in detail.

I see your point. As one with sociological training, however, I think you have confused the semantics of completeness of records as opposed to their accuracy.

The village records are remarkably complete in that they account for many factors and that all villages are accounted for. That should not, however, be construed to imply that the records were always accurate. In fact, the very argument advanced in this passage rests on the notion that the records were not accurate.

"Complete" in this case does is not supposed to imply that every person was reported in the census, but that the records were there and that they contained all the information they were asked for. I can understand the confusion, since accuracy with regards to a figure depends on it being closer to the actual number that was there, and you might be tempted to think that "remarkably complete" refers to how closely the figures for the populations approach actual figures, but that is not the case here.

(C)
The last boldface is a CONCLUSION/POSITION..That's the Key

The first bold face part actually provides context without which the authors position could easily be weakened.

The author is arguing that villages intentionally concealed the number of villagers. Therefore, there were no actual declines.

However, this argument would be on shaky ground, if the records were incomplete. It would be easy to claim that the observed decline wasn't reliable because the record was incomplete.

Therefore, to prevent this line of attack, the argument has to establish that the records were complete in the first place.

Think of it this way - if it turns out that archivists only had access to the census records of 60% villages the author could not claim that "villages overwhelmingly reported significant population declines." At that point it would make it difficult to come up with any theory describing the decline, for the decline itself would be open to question.

Hope that helps!