#12 - In a scene in an ancient Greek play, Knights, the

[bkinsella05@gmail.com]

I would like to know if my line of reasoning is correct. I arrived at answer choice (D) in the Blind Review after analyzing the fact that Demosthenes' companion had to ask for an explanation of the prophecy. Had Demosthenes read out loud, his companion wouldn't need to press him for information of the prophecy to begin with. Therefore based on the given information, (D) is justifiably rejected and is the correct answer choice.

[Luke Haqq]

Hi bkinsella05!

Yes, your reasoning is correct. Demosthenes looks at a writing tablet and "continuously expresses his amazement at the contents." He's clearly reading the tablet, since he's examining and expressing a reaction to the contents. If he had been reading the contents aloud, his companion would have had no reason to ask what was written. We can therefore infer that he must have been reading silently to himself, making (D) the correct answer.

[hinarizvi]

I think the language of the question stem is throwing me off - In asking what can be justifiably rejected, it's asking what must be false, correct? And C doesn't HAVE to be false, because like you say below, based off of one given instance/example, we can conclude that that instance happens at least sometimes, but we cannot conclude that it never happens. We also cannot prove OR disprove that something happens rarely/most of the time/often based off of one instance. It could be true, we just don't know. Since C could be true, it does not have to be false, making it a wrong answer choice. Is that correct?

Hi Liz,

Great question--how could you streamline your problem-solving? I'd like to address this a bit abstractly so that you can apply the same reasoning to similar problems.

1) You tried to prephrase, but of course you couldn't guess what "cannot be true" without reading the answer choices. Here, you can't prephrase because there are too many conclusions that could and couldn't be drawn. Instead, just make sure you understand the stimulus, maybe by rereading and summarizing it quickly to yourself.

2) Also understand structurally what this stimulus is. It's an example. What types of things CAN be proved with an example? That X has happened at least once/sometimes. (An example shows that it cannot be true that X never happens.) What CAN'T be proved with an example? That X happens rarely, often, most of the time, always. Those things could be true.

3) Cross out any answer choice that COULD BE TRUE/COULD BE FALSE but you can't say for sure.

(A) One example does not tell us about ancient Greek plays generally. COULD BE TRUE

(B) There is nothing in the stimulus about whether the play is fictional or not. COULD BE TRUE

(C) The word "commonly" shows that this is the same as A. One example does not tell us about ancient Greek plays generally. COULD BE TRUE

(D) It CANNOT BE TRUE that something did not happen at all if the stimulus is an example of it happening.

(E) The word "rarely" shows that this is the same as A and C. One example does not tell us about ancient Greek plays generally. COULD BE TRUE

Even if you were uncomfortable about D because of the difference between ancient Greek plays and ancient Greece itself, the other answer choices have all been eliminated. D is the only possibility because it says that something never happened, which can be disproven by one example. Luckily, that's all the stimulus is: one example.

On the other hand, you shouldn't assume that an ancient Greek play shows nothing about ancient Greece because the actors wouldn't likely be doing things on stage that would be completely incomprehensible to their audience.

I hope this helps!