Logical Reasoning

PT131 · S2 · Q12 A theoretical framework facilitates

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A theoretical framework facilitates conceptual organization of material and fruitful expansions of research.

Setup

A theoretical framework helps organize and expand research, and many historians think historical analysis is best done within a theoretical framework. Sadly, you can't use a theoretical framework for historical analysis (the past is too complex). So, ....

Logical Completion

So, ... we'll have to hope there's a different way to organize and expand research? So, ... we won't be able to use the method that many historians think is the best?

Goal

Find a safely worded answer that ties together the consequence of us not being able to use theoretical frameworks when it comes to studying history.

12.

Which one of the following most logically completes the argument?

  1. there is no benefit ever

    Too Strong: "no benefit ever"

    That's the opposite of the safely worded takeaway we're looking for.

    2% picked this

  2. theoretical frameworks are less useful

    Too Strong: "any other discipline"

    We know that theoretical frameworks can't be used for history, but we don't know that they are the least useful. Other disciplines could be tied with history, if likewise for those disciplines theoretical frameworks had zero usefulness.

    9% picked this

  3. Correct

    even the best historical analysis

    Why this is right

    This is more or less a restatement of the idea that "history is too complex for all of its main trends to be captured in a theoretical framework". If that's the case, then any theoretical framework of history that we consider will have failed to capture at least one main trend.

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

    85% picked this

  4. the value of theoretical work

    Out of Scope: "emphasized by historians"

    Even if this were something we could infer, it doesn't sound like a takeaway from that final claim (that you can't use this framework when it comes to history) The first sentence, in which we learn of the value of a theoretical framework, is presented as an established truth, not something that some historians are emphasizing.

    3% picked this

  5. there is no difference between

    Too Strong: "no difference"

    Even though we could never capture all of history's main trends with a theoretical framework, we're not in any position to say that an analysis that used a theoretical framework vs. an analysis that didn't, would be identical.

    1% picked this

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