I agree. I believe that <b>A</b> is the answer.
(A) If it is true that Tocqueville's childhood poverty was caused by bad harvests, then Napolean's centralized ruling had nothing to do with Tocqueville's childhood living conditions. Hence, the biographer's claim is incorrect.
(B) This only confirms Tocqueville's point of view, but is irrelevant to the conclusion made by the biographers.
(C) This is besides the point. The biographers claim that Tocqueville blames Napolean's centralized ruling for his poverty, not his father's illness. This is out of scope.
(D) This statement would weaken Tocqueville's statement. However, we are looking to weaken the biographer's conclusion.
(E) This statement implies that all of Normandy suffered from poverty as well along with Tocqueville, but we cannot conclude from this that Tocqueville did not blame Napolean for his poverish childhood.
What is the OA?
rigger wrote:
I have the OA, but with no OE. Please help!
Tocqueville, a nineteenth-century writer known for his study of democracy in the United States, believed that a government that centralizes power in one individual or institution is dangerous to its citizens. Biographers claim that Tocqueville disliked centralized government because he blamed Napoleon’s rule for the poverty of his childhood in Normandy.
Which of the following, if true, would cast the most serious doubt on the biographers’ claim?
(A) Although Napoleon was popularly blamed at the time for the terrible living conditions in Normandy, historians now know that bad harvests were really to blame for the poor economic conditions.
(B) Napoleon was notorious for refusing to share power with any of his political associates.
(C) Tocqueville said he knew that if his father had not suffered ill health, his family would have had a steady income and a comfortable standard of living.
(D) Although Tocqueville asserted that United States political life was democratic, the United States of the nineteenth century allowed political power to be concentrated in a few institutions.
(E) Tocqueville once wrote in a letter that, although his childhood was terribly impoverished, it was not different from the experience of his friends and neighbors in Normandy.
close
