Q19

[tirzamullin]

Can someone just explain why E is the correct answer?

[ohthatpatrick]

Well, it's our protocol to do a complete explanation, but I'll be snappy.

1st pass
(A) "far from complete" sounds extreme

(B) "justified in abandoning" sounds extreme

(C) how did women have any political influence in this Rome story?

(D) "much modern scholarship fails to recognize gender" sounds extreme

(E) Sure ... I mean ... passage B was about a Roman emperor creating a gender-based law, and then the passage discussed the effects of that on the culture. The 2nd and 3rd paragraphs of passage B were about political and cultural effects of gender roles. Lines 12-18 in Psg A provide some reinforcement for the language in (E) and Psg B.

Mostly, (E) is correct because the others are way off. It's the most supportable answer, even if there's no direct way to connect Psg A and Psg B.

To me, (E) sounds a lot like the correct answer to Q14, which is "How the heck are these two very different passages connected? Well, they're both talking about the role of gender in shaping politics and culture."

Hope this helps.

[SheridanC724]

Hello! Could you please expand on why C is the incorrect answer? I originally picked E but switched to C at the last minute because I thought that Passage A showed support for "increased attention to the political influence of women" in lines 14-16, and Passage B showed support in lines 48-50 ("more politicized"). Is C wrong because politicized =/= political influence?

Thank you!

[GlenH807]

Is C wrong because the current trend actually shifted from "attention to the political influence of women" to analyzing the political and social impact of gender relations? Line 4-7

[ohthatpatrick]

Yes, you could also ditch (C) for that reason.

The only current trend in scholarship that (A) talked about was from "history of specific women" to "history of gender".

[crocca]

Can you go more in depth as to why A is incorrect? Although it's "too extreme", it seems like the only choice that reflects the tone and opinion of the author of passage A, much more so than E.

[AmyH231]

My understanding for eliminating A was two-pronged. For one thing, we can't get any support for "historical mainstream." B is only one example of a passage--and even if we could decide definitively that B is a part of this historical mainstream, how would we be able to say that this shows women's history "is far from complete?" Answer A could then be interpreted an opposite answer, because B is an example of integrating women's history into the mainstream--women are the gender being discussed here, and while specific women are not talked about, you could argue that the topic is women and their roles Augustus's political strategy (see line 19).

C tripped me up because the passage could illustrate a trend and you could argue that the passage is about the political significance of women, but ultimately I dismissed it because it uses the word "influence"--the passage is all about Augustus influencing the gender dynamic, and women's roles are being manipulated by him. Is that a good reason to eliminate, or am I getting too in the weeds?

[BorisJ159]

I'm still stuck between A and E. My reasoning for A was that the lack of any mention of women's individual history in the Augustus piece demonstrates that the integration of the study of women's history is incomplete. Also, I can't find a value judgement indicating that the use of gender was successful in E or that the author of the first passage thinks it would be.