Q8

[bermudask8er7]

Can you explain why C is correct and why D is incorrect? Thanks.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Thanks for posting your question!

Answer choices (C) and (D) are very similar. The majority of the two answer choices are word for word. But there are differences in few key places, and using these differences, we should be able to make the final elimination.

Let's knock out answer choices (A), (B), and (E) though first in case someone else found one of those tempting.

(A) is on the wrong side of the argument. The author seems to think that the lack of focus on the poetic aspects of the Homeric poems was unfortunate.
(B) is too narrow in scope. This may be true, but is not the point the author intended to convey.
(E) is too narrow in scope and is unsupported by the passage.

So now we're down to answer choices (C) and (D).

One key difference is the language "nonpoetic aspects" vs. "nonacademic writers."

If you check the first paragraph you'll see that it's not true that most works were authored by "nonacademic writers," but rather that only nonacademic writers were focused on the poetic aspects of the Homeric poems. The specialists were all focused on the nonpoetic elements. Since there was a drought in the scholarly interest in the poetic aspects, it's implied that there were more academics than nonacademics writing about the poems. If it were the other way around, and most studies were authored by nonacademics, then we wouldn't have seen the drought in scholarly interest in the poetic aspects of the Homeric poems.

(C) aligns with the text.
(D) but more importantly, we can eliminate answer choice (D) since it runs against the information in the first paragraph.

Remember, when you're down to two answer choices, find reasons to eliminate one. Usually it's much more difficult to find support for one over the other. So eliminate, and move from wrong to right. Does that answer your question?

[bermudask8er7]

Now I see. Thanks again for such a nice explanation!