#21 - Historian: The standard "QWERTY" configuration of

[Khodi7531]

Hey Emily, I did read that and that's where my question stemmed from really.

I def don't agree where he says it's "definintley wrong" because it definintley isn't.

Not sure how you can assume, "maybe it's only for the short term" when the stem clearly states they created this, for the purpose of slowing down typewriters and preventing jams. That was the reason, that's why it was created. If that didn't happen, there is no other potential reason that's given that shows the QWERTY configuration to be superior over another format. IS there a possibility that there is...sure. But it doesn't allude to it in the stem in any way. It gives only one reason for it. I can't just assume that "well maybe they ended up liking it regardless". Although that's true that's not the purpose of why they used this method so how can I assume they would use it for another reason.

Again, if you said to get rid of C it's because it's a hypothetical situation, it makes sense. Still annoying, but I get how its an issue when it states, "well if that wasn't invented, then this wouldn't have happened". But again the reason that was stated to get rid of a/c C doesn't hold up with the process of elimination that i've grown to understand

[Francis O'Rourke]

Hi Khodi,

When Robert said that answer choice (C) was "definitely wrong," he meant that answer choice (C) was definitely not the right answer, because it is definitely not proven. It is true that the designers may have acted as answer choice (C) describes, but it is definitely wrong to assume that they 100% would have.

It is important to remember that the problem that the designers faced at that time would have still existed for consumers who bought those typewriters, even if they were aware that future generations would not have to deal with typewriter jams.

If I told you that in 20 years no car would need a steering wheel, do you think that all car designers would immediately remove steering wheels from cars this year? The problem of how to steer a car still exists (autonomous driving still has issues today), whether or not future engineers figure out how to get past it, so it's likely that designers would keep steering wheels in cars for the time being.

Similarly, it's merely possible that the original typewriter designers would have chosen something that would have caused consumers a lot of problems at the time. There are examples of companies anticipating changes and designing products accordingly (e.g. apple removing headphone jacks last year because of the anticipated performance of wireless technology), but there is no rule that says that designers must do this.

[CJ12345:]

Hi, Powerscore,
Why AC C is too speculative, whereas AC E is not. They are both making some hypothesis or prediction. In general, when the test have AC like C and E, how can I know when it is safe to choose this type of answer?

[Robert Carroll]

CJ12345:,

Answer choice (C) is way too speculative because it doesn't make sense. If researchers foresaw that technology would, decades later, make a certain design better, would they really design keyboards to be useless for decades, anticipating that eventually they wouldn't be? It strikes me as similar to speculation about how the ancient Romans would have laid out their roads if they had anticipated that eventually the internal combustion engine would be invented. Would the Romans have expended twice as much valuable labor 2000 years ago to build wider roads, not because wider roads were useful then, but because two-lane highways might be useful now? That is doubtful.

Since literally the only reason the keyboard was designed a certain way was to prevent typewriter jamming, if that cause were removed, it's eminently plausible to think they would have changed their design in some way. Thus, answer choice (E) is not speculative in the way that answer choice (C) is. Keyboards are bad. They're bad on purpose - it used to be necessary to be bad, because the alternative was even worse - jamming. No one without some compelling reason intentionally designs things badly. So if jamming were not an issue, the impetus for designing keyboards purposely badly would be removed. That gone, keyboards wouldn't be designed that way anymore, since it's a bad design.

Robert Carroll