Historical Objectivity

Answer choices

1. A

   Out of scope: rival proponents4% picked this

   refute a claim made by proponents of a rival approach to

   Neither passage is combating proponents. They are just talking to us, the reader, explaining that history isn’t supposed to be propaganda.

   4%
2. B

   Unknown Comparison: other fields3% picked this

   suggest that scholars in fields other than history tend to be more

   Neither of the references to propaganda has anything to do with scholars in other fields. Both authors would presumably think that a propagandist is not a scholar (or at least when they’re doing propaganda, they’re not doing scholarly work).

   3%
3. C

   Out of Scope: recently discredited4% picked this

   point to a type of scholarship that has recently

   The sentences that say propaganda are simply saying, “Historians don’t want to be guilty of propaganda (i.e. brainwashing people with a certain dubious narrative)”. There isn’t any reference to recent scholarship that has been discredited.

   4%
4. D

   Correct74% picked this

   identify one extreme to which historians

   Why this is right

   This is a weird correct answer. We wanted something like, "identify what history is not supposed to be". In the sense that this is calling propaganda an extreme version of history (extremes are usually bad), we can kind of see what we wanted here. This answer makes it sounds as though propaganda lies on the same continuum as more serious, respectable history. The way Passage A says that "objective historians see their role as ... one who must never become an advocate, or worse propagandist" does seem to place history on a slippery slope that leads towards advocacy and then propaganda. You go from just trying to report on what happened, to then trying to suggest to people (advocate) how to think about what happened, to then trying to advance an artificial narrative (propaganda) that is a totally unfair reflection of reality. The way Passage B says "the very possibility of historical scholarship as an enterprise distinct from propaganda requires X". That phrasing suggests that historical scholarship and propaganda are in danger of being the same enterprise. To even possibly de-couple them, you need to be able to abandon wishful thinking, assimilate bad news, and resist pleasing interpretations that aren't really well supported or reasoned. So both authors are referring to propaganda as a potential danger that historians can slip into if they're not careful .... or an extreme to which they may tend if they don't stay true to the objective history goal.

   Skill tested: Local Purpose · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

   74%
5. E

   Out of Scope: persuasive writing15% picked this

   draw contrasts with other kinds of

   What we were looking for was “the author brought up propaganda to clarify that historians are not trying to write propaganda”, so this answer is conveying that idea of contrasting propaganda with actual history writing. Is history writing persuasive writing, though? Well, according to Passage B it is. That author is clarifying for us that history writing isn’t neutral. It argues a point of view, but it attains its objectivity by fairly and sensitively considering opposing points of view. But Passage A doesn’t seem to argue that history is persuasive writing. In fact, Passage A is stressing utter objectivity and neutrality. It should be like a judge's ruling, which we do no think of as "persuasive writing". Passage A does contrast propaganda with advocacy, and advocacy is definitely a form of persuasive writing, but the reason Passage A brought up propaganda was not to contrast it with advocacy (but rather to say that the historian is trying to avoid being a propagandist).

   15%