Critical Reasoning

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 most 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.

Guys please post the time too..

IMO C

Time - 2.30 mins[/spoiler]

IMO - B (2:02 Min.)

Keyword : occasionally unsucessful

A) has "more" ,I forgot but a Knewton tutor explained the use of more very well.
B) some -- this word sounds good..

IMO B in 3min

IMO, B, took me 3:53 min.

was struggling between B and C...eventually eliminated C because of the "conflicting chronologies"

option B 1.45 min

Could someone please explain why the ans. is B.

I'm confused.

Thanks in advance.

Asher wrote:Could someone please explain why the ans. is B.

I'm confused.

Thanks in advance.

let me try if i can convince you with my reply.
remember its an inference question. so answer MUST be present in the stimulus. no assumptions allowed.

A-does the stimuus really talk abt historians who attempted to analyse the chrolonoly. it only suggests that they shud do it.

C-read the first line, we only want events for which we have conflicting evidence. answer choice C has "any event"

D-though the passage says historians may fail occassionally it is too strong an option to say its ineffective.

E-its not the best(soundest) approach as the passage itself points out flaws. also the point is not to undermine credibility of as many as possible, just remove the sources which are less credible, thts it. not to purposefully remove them.

now 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 - the passage clearly sates once the historians attempt to eliminate less credible sources they may still be unsuccesfull at times to determine which date is right.
(historians may try, though on occasion unsuccessfully, to determine independently of the usual sources which date is more likely to be right.)

it was between B and C for me. but C has a subtle word there. any event. that makes it out of contention.

hope tht helps.

This:

rohu27 wrote:
now 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 - the passage clearly sates once the historians attempt to eliminate less credible sources they may still be unsuccesfull at times to determine which date is right.
(historians may try, though on occasion unsuccessfully, to determine independently of the usual sources which date is more likely to be right.)

is a wonderful explanation for why (B) is the supported inference.

And this:

B) some -- this word sounds good.

is great thinking, and, in fact, is the basis for a solid tip in inference questions:

An inference is something that must be true. But any extreme statement is difficult to prove. That's why one should avoid strongly worded (or "extreme") answer choices in inference. A corollary of this is that one should be partial to weakly worded or tentative answer choices in inference questions: a lot of right answers to inference questions contain language such as:

"not necessarily"
"generally"
"at least"
or, as here, "some."

IMO B .

1:20 .

Is this from POwerscore CR bible ?

IMO B
53 secs

OA is B guys

rohu27 wrote:

Asher wrote:Could someone please explain why the ans. is B.

I'm confused.

Thanks in advance.

let me try if i can convince you with my reply.
remember its an inference question. so answer MUST be present in the stimulus. no assumptions allowed.

A-does the stimuus really talk abt historians who attempted to analyse the chrolonoly. it only suggests that they shud do it.

C-read the first line, we only want events for which we have conflicting evidence. answer choice C has "any event"

D-though the passage says historians may fail occassionally it is too strong an option to say its ineffective.

E-its not the best(soundest) approach as the passage itself points out flaws. also the point is not to undermine credibility of as many as possible, just remove the sources which are less credible, thts it. not to purposefully remove them.

now 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 - the passage clearly sates once the historians attempt to eliminate less credible sources they may still be unsuccesfull at times to determine which date is right.
(historians may try, though on occasion unsuccessfully, to determine independently of the usual sources which date is more likely to be right.)

it was between B and C for me. but C has a subtle word there. any event. that makes it out of contention.

hope tht helps.

Thanks for the explanation, rohu27.