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#26715
Please post below with any questions!
 mokkyukkyu
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#28259
Hello,

I chose C...I thought if there is no evidence, then it does not represent the period.
Why is C wrong and E correct?

Thank you
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 Jonathan Evans
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#28411
Hi, Mok,

This question asks you to identify an assumption necessary for the argument to be valid. In other words, you must identify some unstated belief implicit in the argument that is required for the conclusion to make any sense. The key word in the question stem is "required." Which among the answer choices is "required" for the conclusion to be valid?

When you start by working the stimulus, identify the conclusion:
The Dörpfeld excavation did not uncover the remains of ancient Troy.
Next find the facts supporting this conclusion:
The city uncovered was too small to have withstood a ten-year siege.

In the ancient epic The Iliad, Troy is subjected to a ten-year siege.
Now, ask yourself why you might disagree with the conclusion. How is it possible that the city that was found could have been ancient Troy even though the city was clearly too small to have been subjected to the siege depicted in the poem?

Your job is to illustrate an alternate scenario consistent with the facts. In this case, you might come up with the idea, "What if the story is not completely accurate?"

What you do here is identify the gap in the reasoning, a problem that illustrates that even though you have some support for the author's conclusion, it is still possible to arrive at alternate outcomes.

Now consider the question stem:

What is an assumption (missing, implicit premise) required by the argument?

What must the author believe at a minimum for his conclusion to be valid? Go back to your observation: What if the story is not true?

Now connect your observation to the question stem task to come up with a prephrase:

At a minimum the author must believe the events related in The Iliad represent a somewhat accurate description of actual history.

With this prephrase you arrive at answer choice E. Imagine that E were not true, The Iliad does not accurately represent the duration of the Trojan War. In this case, the conclusion of the argument makes no sense. This truth of this information is clearly required for the argument to be valid.

Now consider your answer, C: Is it really necessary that Dörpfeld's team found no evidence that a siege had occurred in the city they found? No. Even if this team had found such evidence, the city in question still might not have been ancient Troy. It could have been some other besieged city.

I hope this explanation helps.
 Bruin96
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#71308
Hello,

When doing this problem I identified the conclusion as" But that belief cannot be true". I continued on with the argument thinking that, the belief that could not be true was that the city was troy which was described in the Iliad. My prephrase for the answers was, the correct answer will contain a lack of connection between Troy and the Iliad . Which is why I chose answer choice B.

I still don't understand why answer choice E is the correct answer.
 Adam Tyson
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#71323
You started off great here, Bruin96, in correctly identifying the conclusion, that "that belief cannot be correct." But where you went wrong is in identifying what "that belief" is. What did Dörpfeld believe? He believed that the city he found was the city of Troy. It's not about believing that the Iliad described Troy - that's presented as a fact, not as a belief.

Why does the author believe that Dörpfeld is wrong, and this is NOT Troy? Because the facts on the ground don't match what we know from the Iliad. What, then, must he assume to be true? That the information in the Iliad is accurate!

Try the negation technique on these answer choices. First, negate answer B. What if the Iliad DOES provide specific clues about Troy's location? Does that ruin his argument that this ancient city cannot be Troy? Nope - it's still too small, darn it! His evidence remains fairly convincing, despite answer B being false. That proves that B was NOT a required assumption of the argument. It didn't have to be true for the author to be correct in his reasoning.

Now try negating answer E. What if the Iliad DOES NOT accurately represent the duration of the Trojan War? That means the only real evidence the author relied on is bad evidence, and therefore the logical force of his argument is pretty much nil. His argument rests on false info, and falls apart. He might still be right, but there's no longer any reason to believe that he is. That is the impact we want to see when we negate the correct answer! If a required assumption turns out to be false, the argument should be wrecked.

Be sure you are correctly identifying what the author is trying to prove. Then carefully identify what evidence he offered to support that claim. Then, finally, determine what's missing that the argument requires in order to make sense. That's your prephrase for an assumption.
 Bruin96
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#71347
Thank you Adam, that makes so much more sense!

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