Historian: We can learn about the

Answer choices

1. A

   Too Strong: none23% picked this

   None of the mercury introduced into the body can

   The author doesn't need to assume that once mercury is in your body, not one atom of it can be eliminated. If we negate this, we get a weak idea like "at least one bit of mercury can be eliminated from the body". That won't be any sort of objection. It won't affect the author's argument if 1% of the mercury we ingest gets eliminated over time. She is only looking for "a trace" of mercury, so she even seems cognizant that most of the mercury may be gone by this point, but a trace may remain.

   23%
2. B

   Correct42% picked this

   Some people in Beethoven’s time did not

   Why this is right

   This is really weak language, which is appealing, because when we negate it, it turns into a strong idea. The negation of "some (at least one)" is "none". If we said "No people in B's time did not ingest mercury", we'd have a double negative. Clean it up, and we're saying "Every single person in B's time ingested mercury". Okay, this ruins the author's argument. If everyone ingested mercury, then finding a trace of mercury wouldn't reveal that you had venereal disease (unless 100% of people also had venereal disease). It wouldn't be possible to differentiate between the people who had mercury for their VD and people who ingested mercury for other reasons.

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

   42%
3. C

   Out of Scope: effective7% picked this

   Mercury is an effective treatment for

   The author doesn't need to assume that these outdated medical treatments were effective. We can mention that "people used to use leeches to suck out their evil thoughts"; that doesn't mean we're assuming that "leeches are an effective way to remove evil thoughts".

   7%
4. D

   Out of Scope: mercury caused deafness26% picked this

   Mercury poisoning can cause deafness in people with

   The author was saying that venereal disease caused deafness, not mercury. The VD caused deafness. The mercury was prescribed as a treatment for the VD. They say that mercury poisoning may have caused Newton's psychological problems, but at no point is the author suggesting that mercury caused Beethoven's deafness.

   26%
5. E

   Too Strong2% picked this

   Beethoven suffered from psychological problems of the same severity

   "Same" is a sneaky extreme word. If you replaced it with "identical" it would properly scare you. The author doesn't need to assume that B's psychological problems are identical in severity to N's. In fact, the author doesn't need to assume that Beethoven has any psychological problems. Deafness is a physiological problem, not a psychological problem.

   2%