#15 - Concept Reference, Must Be True, Author's Perspective

[Jonathan Evans]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (C).

This question asks how the author of Passage A would respond to the historical analysis found in Passage B. Let's start by describing the historical analysis of Passage B. We could prephrase:

• Passage B is a contemporary academic/historical discussion of the manner in which a Roman emperor used domesticity and traditional gender roles for political ends.

How would the author of Passage A react to an excerpt such as this? We need to find evidence. Where does the author of Passage A talk about contemporary historical scholarship about women? Lines 12-16 describe scholarship that has a lot in common with what we just described. To wit, "[A]rticles about women gave way to explorations of how an imagined domesticity [...] shaped culture and politics."

Passage B seems like just such an exploration of how imagined domesticity shaped culture and politics, in this case, that of the Roman Empire.

Next, we need to know how the author of Passage A feels about such scholarship. The answer is in lines 29 ff. The author of passage A is concerned that scholarship such as this overlooks the "particular ways in which individual women engaged their worlds."

Thus, we could use for our prephrase:

• The author of Passage A may think that Passage B elides the contributions of individual women.

Now let's compare this prephrase to our answer choices:

• Answer choice (A): There is no evidence to suggest ancient conceptions of gender are different from modern conceptions.
  
  Answer choice (B) There is no evidence to suggest that the author of Passage A is concerned with masculinity per se or its omission.
  
  Answer choice (C) This is the correct answer choice. This answer matches our prephrase that Passage B neglects details about individual women in service of a larger narrative.
  
  Answer choice (D) There is no evidence concerning the comparative role of domesticity in politics.
  
  Answer choice (E) There is no evidence to suggest the author of Passage A is concerned with new knowledge about Augustus's martial laws.

[T.B.Justin]

Hey Jon,

This helped, thank you!

I had this down to B and C and selected B incorrectly, as I thought that the mention of masculinity (ln 12-13) as part of where the dramatic integration of women's study transitioned into, however as you pointed out the author does not offer an opinion of any value of that masculinity, so I get that the author is more or less not concerned with masculinity or its omission.