Q21 - In 1578 Moroccan troops defeated a

[kyuya]

Going to take a stab at this question.

In this stimulus the author takes issue with the omission of King Sebastian of Portugal being killed because he believes it is a big enough deal in conjunction with having enough supporting evidence that it should be an established fact. The author aims to explain what is in his mind a big discrepancy.

I'll start with the wrong answers.

(B) The evidence provided is quite direct. The author of this suggests that there is direct evidence of accounts stating that the dead kings body had been seen.

(C) Correct me if I'm wrong, but I see no contradiction in the premises given for this argument.

(D) There is no general psychological principle given. There is a psychological cause which is mentioned but even if we ignore what we are being asked in the question stem, the fact there is no principle is enough for us to eliminate this answer choice.

(E) This one is a bit tricky I think. The entire argument in the stimulus is based on the idea of an OMISSION, which simply means something NOT being mentioned, which is in this case the death of King S. There are no reports then that conflict with the arguments main conclusion that people are simply ignoring the fact the king died to save themselves from embarrassment - since there ARE no reports written by the contemporaries that even mention the death at all. Therefore, the fact that the reports contain omissions do not mean it is a directly in conflict. Again, the author here is essentially doing his own personal version of "solve the discrepancy".

On to the right answer..

(A) The discussion of the officers does provide grounds for eliminating an alternative explanation. It gets rid of the potential explanation being that the death of King S. did not occur by providing evidence that the death did in fact occur. Therefore, it eliminates an alternative explanation, and makes the idea that this is a large discrepancy that much more legitimate.