LR Question 18 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: The tendency toward overspecialization in the study…
QUESTION TYPE: Principle – Parallel Reasoning
CONCLUSION: The trend of overspecialization in the study of artifacts is unfortunate.
REASONING: Scholars can improve their understanding of an object by studying objects from an earlier period that influenced the object. The stimulus gives as an example the fact that Arabic porcelain influenced Spanish porcelain.
ANALYSIS: The correct answer must have two characteristics:
- Not being too narrowly specialized
- Studying something from the past that directly influenced the thing we want to study.
___________
- This may be true but it isn’t talking about studying the past to understand the present or the dangers of specialization.
- Very tempting. This does warn against specialization and it does recommend studying the past. But…it doesn’t recommend studying past events that influenced the present. It only talks about studying similar events.
- This doesn’t say if those other languages influenced French or if they only share linguistic roots with French.
- This doesn’t talk about studying the direct influences of an academic discipline.
- CORRECT. We must go beyond studying Aristotle (beyond specialization) and study the past influence of Aristotle: Plato.
More Resources for Principle Questions
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Principle questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers principle questions.
what I don’t understand is that in the stimulus it says that it can enhance understanding, this does not mean that it completely understands so wouldn’t this answer be too strong?
Thanks.
In the stimulus’ last sentence, it says a “proper understanding”. Usually when someone properly understands something, they know everything about it, so they would more or less have a complete understanding of the subject. Also, the “completely” part in the answer choice shouldn’t be your focus here: notice that each of the answer choices begins with words like “completely understand”, “fully understand”, “fully appreciate”, and “understand properly” – they are synonyms and all mean the same thing.