#25 - Concept Reference, Must Be True

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (A).

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[bonbon94]

Why is the correct answer A? I thought the author was arguing how the sources weren't good at examining how medivial law affected women? Why is B incorrect?

[Jeff Wren]

Hi bonbon,

The question asks about the sources consulted by legal scholars of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and for what topic did these sources provide adequate evidence.

To answer this question, you will want to start by returning to the relevant lines of the passage prior to reading the answers.

The sources mentioned in the question are discussed in lines 11-15. Just before those lines, the author contrasts "how the law actually affected women as opposed to how the law was intended to affect them or thought to affect them" (my emphasis)(lines 8-10). The next sentence begins "These latter questions can be answered by consulting such sources as" (my emphasis)(line 11-12) and then lists the sources mentioned in the question. "These latter questions" refers to how the law was intended to affect women or how the law was thought to affect women in the previous sentence.

In other words, these sources do answer those types of questions. This prephrase matches Answer A.

While it is true that the author did not think that these sources were adequate to answer "how the law actually affected women," that is not what Answer A states.

As for Answer B, "the overall effectiveness of English law in the medieval period" is not discussed in the passage.