Logical Reasoning

PT101 · S3 · Q23 Historians of North American architecture

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Historians of North American architecture who have studied early nineteenth-century houses with wooden floors have observed that the boards used on the floors of bigger houses were generally much narrower than those used on the floors of smaller houses.

Conclusion

Narrow floorboards in early-19th-century houses were probably a status symbol designed to proclaim wealth.

Evidence

Bigger houses (built for richer people) had narrower boards; smaller houses (built for poorer people) had wider boards.

Evaluate

The author leaps from "rich people had narrow boards" to "narrow boards were a status symbol." But that only works if narrow boards were a chosen luxury, not just a practical or cost-determined outcome. If narrow boards were cheaper than wide boards, the wealthy weren't signaling status — they were just buying them, perhaps for ordinary practical reasons. To strengthen, we need the price not to be the explanation.

Goal

Find an answer establishing that narrow boards were not significantly cheaper than wide boards — so wealth, not cost, drove the choice.

23.

Which one of the following, if true, most helps to strengthen the historians’ argument?

  1. More original floorboards have survived

    No Impact

    This is about which floorboards survived to be studied today, not about why people originally chose narrow vs. wide. Survival rates don't bear on the status-symbol argument — the historians' observations about which size was used in which house are taken as fact.

    8% picked this

  2. Correct

    In the early nineteenth century,

    Why this is right

    This rules out the price-based alternative. If narrow floorboards weren't significantly cheaper than wide ones, then the rich weren't just being thrifty — they were paying roughly the same (or more) per piece for narrow boards. That makes the choice harder to explain on cost grounds and supports the status-symbol explanation: rich people were choosing narrow boards for the message they sent, not the savings.

    Skill tested: Strengthen · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    49% picked this

  3. In the early nineteenth century,

    No Impact

    That bigger houses had more rooms is unsurprising and unrelated to whether the floorboard width signaled status. Floor count or layout doesn't bear on the meaning of board width.

    5% picked this

  4. Some early nineteenth-century houses had

    No Impact

    This says some houses had wide boards near walls and narrow ones in the center under carpets. That's actually consistent with practical considerations (cheaper boards under carpet) rather than status — if anything, it complicates the status story by showing wide and narrow boards used in the same house. It doesn't strengthen the status-symbol claim.

    5% picked this

  5. Many of the biggest early

    No Impact

    This says big houses sometimes used more expensive floor materials, not narrow boards specifically. That doesn't bear on the status-symbol meaning of narrow floorboards in particular. If anything, it suggests rich people had multiple ways to signal wealth, but doesn't support that narrow boards specifically did so.

    34% picked this

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