Historian: The practice of primogeniture, under which only oldest sons

Question

Which of the following most logically completes the historian’s argument below?

Historian: The practice of primogeniture, under which only oldest sons inherit, had produced in Europe by the time of the Crusades a large population of aristocratic young men lacking any economic resources or prospects at home. For these men, joining a Crusade to the rich lands of the East would have seemed their only opportunity to acquire a fortune.

Therefore, it can reasonably be concluded, though there is little direct evidence on this point, that.

A. younger sons of aristocratic families were strongly represented among those who joined the Crusades
B. for most participants, economic motives for joining a Crusade outweighed all other motives
C. very few firstborn sons participated in the Crusades out of economic motives
D. no one with economic resources or prospects at home would have joined a Crusade
E. many younger sons who would otherwise never have had independent fortunes succeeded in acquiring such fortunes as a result of their participation in the Crusades

RonPurewal · Accepted Answer

You can also approach this problem with process-of-elimination. On the official GMAT, the WRONG answers to "prove a choice" problems will either be entirely unsupported (= irrelevant; neither supported nor refuted by anything in the passage) or else will actually contradict the passage.

.
 
The passage is limited to a discussion of the economic motives of second- or later-born sons of wealthy aristocrats. There is definitely nothing in the passage to make us think that this group would have comprised "most participants" in the Crusades, so this choice is unsupported.

Another manifestation of "no trick questions" on the official GMAT is that the correct answers will never contravene basic real-world common sense.
This principle is a good reason to get rid of choice B, because the aristocracy has always been a tiny minority out of every population that has ever had aristocrats——so there's just no feasible way that the group mentioned here, comprising only a fraction of the sons of the already-tiny aristocratic classes, could possibly have made up a majority of Crusaders (Christian soldiers).

.
 
Contradicts the passage. Firstborn sons were the ones whose financial security was assured by birthright to their parents' wealth——i.e., the ones who  didn't  have to join expeditionary armies in order to eke out a livelihood.

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Unsupported. The passage talks about how SOME young men became Crusaders because they DIDN'T have any way to make a living at home, but says nothing about whether men with the luxury of free choice did or didn't join for other reasons, even though they didn't HAVE to.

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Unsupported. There is nothing to suggest that anyone became rich as a rank-and-file soldier in the Crusades——and, moreover, it's an egregious violation of basic common sense to suggest that any of them would have.

MartyMurray · Answer

Which of the following most logically completes the historian’s argument below?

Historian: The practice of primogeniture, under which only oldest sons inherit, had produced in Europe by the time of the Crusades a large population of aristocratic young men lacking any economic resources or prospects at home. For these men, joining a Crusade to the rich lands of the East would have seemed their only opportunity to acquire a fortune.

Going through the passage, we see that it basically states two key things:

- Because of "primogeniture," there was a large population of aristocratic young men lacking any economic resources or prospects at home.

- For these aristocratic young men, joining a Crusade would have seemed their only good economic opportunity.

Also, we can see that the passage doesn't say anything about others who may have joined Crusades or indicate that these young men succeeded in acquiring fortunes by joining Crusades. In other words, the information provided by the passage is pretty specific and limited.

Therefore, it can reasonably be concluded, though there is little direct evidence on this point, that.

This question is a Conclusion question in the form of a Complete the Passage question, and the correct answer will be a conclusion that is logically supported by the statements in the passage.

A. younger sons of aristocratic families were strongly represented among those who joined the Crusades

This choice is supported by what the passage says.

After all, if younger sons of aristocratic families were in positions such that it seemed that their only economic opportunities involved joining Crusades, then they had strong incentives for joining Crusades. Thus, it's reasonable to conclude from the information provided by the passage that many did join Crusades. Of course, if many younger sons of aristocratic families joined Crusades, then it would be the case that younger sons of aristocratic families were strongly represented among those who joined the Crusades.

Accordingly, given the information provided by the passage, it's reasonable to conclude what this choice says.

Keep.

B. for most participants, economic motives for joining a Crusade outweighed all other motives

This choice has two failure points.

One is that passage does not say anything about "most participants" in Crusades. The passage is about one possible segment of participants, aristocratic young men. So, the passage does not logically support any conclusions about "most participants."

The second failure point is that, while the passage indicates that aristocratic young men likely had economic motives for joining Crusades, the passage does not indicate anything about "other motives." So, the passage does not logically support the idea that "economic motives for joining a Crusade outweighed all other motives." For all we know from what the passage says, economic motives were not as strong as other motives for joining Crusades, even among young aristocratic men.

Eliminate.

C. very few firstborn sons participated in the Crusades out of economic motives

This choice is tempting. So, to avoid choosing it, we have to notice the following.

The passage indicates that younger sons did have economic motives for joining Crusades, but it does not indicate that firstborn sons did not have economic motives for joining Crusades.

In fact, if we think about it, if Crusades represented opportunities to acquire fortunes, then even firstborn sons may have been interested in participating in Crusades for economic reasons.

So, the passage does not logically support the conclusion that very few firstborn sons participated in the Crusades out of economic motives.

Simply put, the passage supports a conclusion about what younger sons did but doesn't support any conclusion about what firstborn sons did not do.

Eliminate.

D. no one with economic resources or prospects at home would have joined a Crusade

We can eliminate this choice because it goes beyond what the passage supports.

The passage indicates that younger sons in aristocratic families had reasons to join Crusades becuase they lacked economic resources or prospects, but it does not indicate that there were no other reasons to join Crusades.

So, the passage does not indicate that no one with economic resources or prospects at home would have joined a Crusade because it doesn't indicate that there was no reason to join a Crusade other than lack of economic resources or prospects.

There could have been many reasons to join Crusades. So, without information limiting those reasons to lack of economic resources or prospects, we have no clear reason to conclude what this choice says.

Eliminate.

E. many younger sons who would otherwise never have had independent fortunes succeeded in acquiring such fortunes as a result of their participation in the Crusades

To see why this choice is incorrect, we need to notice that the passage indicates that younger sons had reasons to join Crusades but does not indicate in any way that younger sons who joined Crusades "succeeded" in acquiring fortunes.

So, this choice goes beyond what's logically supported by the passage.

Eliminate.

Correct answer:  A

RonPurewal · Answer

When a GMAT question asks you for the "best supported" answer choice, you have to find a choice that you can  PROVE  from the given statements. You'll arrive at this choice by  combining two or more statements from the passage  with as much logical certainty as possible.
(As an example of what I mean by "combining statements", if a passage were to say "My car fits in parking spot number 12" and "My Wife's car does not fit in parking spot number 12", we could combine these statements to conclude "My Wife's car is bigger than mine in at least one dimension".)

This problem has less rigorous logic than its counterparts on the official exam, and is problematic in that you have to attribute factual accuracy to a statement about what "would have seemed" true in order to arrive at the correct answer——but at least it follows the basic contours of the official problems, by giving just only one answer choice that comes anywhere close to being a logical conclusion of the combination of two or more given statements.

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As you read through the passage, you should look for pairs of statements with an obvious connection that will let you combine them (like the parking spot that's mentioned in both of the statements above).

The two bold statements here have a clear relationship:
 
The underlined bold sentence says that the  oldest  son in a family with generational wealth would inherit  ALL  of that wealth——meaning that the family's other sons (if there were any) would get nothing.

Those non-firstborn sons, who were barred from receiving an inheritance, were the "large population of aristocratic young men lacking any economic resources or prospects at home".

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We can make a further connection by noting that these non-firstborn sons (who were denied an inheritance) are "these men" in the following sentence:
 
This is where the current problem falls short of a GMAT-worthy degree of logical rigor: This statement——about what "would have seemed" necessary——does not literally tell us that any of those younger sons actually DID take this option and go join Crusades in faraway lands, but we have to assume that significant numbers of them did so.
The GMAT will not do this; i.e., on "prove an answer" problems, you will never have to infer a greater degree of certainty/probability than the words actually say.

But anyways... With that connection made, we have all the building blocks that we can assemble to get choice A as a consequence.

ArvindVaishnavK · Answer

Can anyone please explain why is it option A?

Raman109 · Answer

Understanding the argument - 
Which of the following most logically completes the historian’s argument below?

Historian: The practice of primogeniture, under which only the oldest sons inherit, had produced in Europe by the time of the Crusades a large population of aristocratic young men lacking any economic resources or prospects at home. - Background info. 
For these men, joining a Crusade to the rich lands of the East would have seemed their only opportunity to acquire a fortune. - opinion.

Therefore, it can reasonably be concluded, though there is little direct evidence on this point, that.

A. younger sons of aristocratic families were strongly represented among those who joined the Crusades - can directly be 100% inferred from the argument.

B. for most participants, economic motives for joining a Crusade outweighed all other motives - It's a bit hyperbolic. The argument talks about the subset of Crusaders, who are aristocratic younger sons, and generalizes the whole population of Crusaders.

C. very few firstborn sons participated in the Crusades out of economic motives - Might be a true category, but can we infer with 100% confidence about this from the argument? No. The argument concerns non-firstborn sons, and this option concerns firstborns.

D. no one with economic resources or prospects at home would have joined a Crusade - This is again hyperbolic. Maybe people had very good economic resources, but they still joined because of religious or political motives. Wrong.

E. many younger sons who would otherwise never have had independent fortunes succeeded in acquiring such fortunes as a result of their participation in the Crusades - Out of scope. This goes further in speculating in terms of what happened after the Crusades, but the argument never touched on this aspect.

sachi-in · Answer

Summary is  :  Yonger sons of nobility -> drawn towards crusades ( why ?  becuase of primogeniture there is no prospect at home )

what do we conclude from above statement? (  since it's a conclusion statement we can quickly eliminate the options by checking if any option contains irrelevant hypotesis or extra informations or assumptions  )

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A. younger sons of aristocratic families were  strongly represented  among those who joined the Crusades
 We can conclude this (  majority  may not have been  younger sons of aristocratic families  , but they were  strongly represented  ) since it is a very inclusive option with no flaws that we can elimiate , we can keep it.

B.  for most participants , economic motives for joining a Crusade outweighed all other motives
  Majority  joined Crusade for economic reason ? it's never implied !

C.  very few  firstborn sons  participated  in the Crusades out of economic motives
perhaps it says :  few participated for economic reasons, ( implies some of them participated due to some other reasons ) 
or perhaps it says :  few participated becuase of economic reasons ( and  nowhere  in the passage  it says a few firstborn Son had participated  in crusades ,  maybe NO firstborn participated  we can't say for sure ) this option has a lot of caveats ( eliminate in favour of A )

D.  no one  with economic resources or prospects at home would have joined a Crusade
  maybe farmers' sons  did not join even though they did not have any prospects at home - eliminate

E.  many younger sons  who would otherwise never have had independent fortunes  succeeded in acquiring such fortunes  as a result of their participation in the Crusades
 we don't know if many managed to actually acquire those fortunes ( perhaps many never returned )

houston1980 · Answer

The keywords is "aristocratic" which was present in option A.

The keyword "aristocratic" or 'similar word" was absent in other options.

Therefore option  A  is the answer.

user1937 · Answer

How can we conclude that "younger sons aristocratic families are overly present in the Crusades"? We only know that AMONG the aristocratic families, younger sons ARE over-represented in the Crusades. What if the proportion of aristocratic men in the Crusades is a very small percentage?

jain67 · Answer

GMATNinja   KarishmaB   MartyMurray  Can you please explain this question? I was confused between A and C.

GMATNinja · Answer

We are told that there was a LARGE population of aristocratic young men lacking any economic resources or prospects at home. Since those young men had a strong motivation to join the Crusades, it's reasonable to conclude that a large number of those young men joined the Crusades.

Obviously we have no idea exactly how many joined or what percentage of Crusaders were represented by that group, but that's fine. Simply having a large number of those young men is enough to qualify as "strong" representation.

Choice (A) doesn't specify a certain percentage or threshold. Since the meaning of "strong" is a bit vague, there's enough wiggle-room to safely conclude that (A) is true.

And remember, we're looking for something that can be REASONABLY concluded, not something that can be PROVEN, so (A) is the best option here.

I hope that helps!

rish_dutton · Answer

Just wanted to express my frustration at GMAT questions at this point. It is these extremely ambiguous questions that keep you from doing amazingly on the GMAT, I feel.

This question seems impossibly faulty on two levels.

Level 1 - by common sense, aristocrats are already a small percentage of people. General, fairly common understanding of aristocrats is equivalent to the top 1% of today's world (think multimillionaires and billionaires) "Aristocracy is a form of government that places power in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats" according to Wikipedia. So let's just say 1000 out of a population of 1000000 (top 1%)

Level 2 - among those, let's say a fair, common sense distribution of population to be 250 older men, 250 older women, 250 younger men, 250 younger women. Out of those 250 younger men, maybe 200 have the incentive to join the crusades because they are not the oldest sons, and out of those, a smaller number actually joins.

If we are talking about being reasonable, the number of younger aristocratic sons in comparison to the 99 other percent of men who have a greater incentive to join because of wealth creation is so bleak. So the reasonable thing to say is that representation of aristocratic sons who are not first borns is going to be so low (in terms of percentage), even if a large proportion of them joins. Granted, there is nothing to suggest that all people from all classes the option to join the crusades, but there is nothing to suggest the opposite either.

How then, by any means, is Option A supposed to be "reasonably concluded" by the information in the passage?

So at this point we're trying to figure out what the hell does the question author want us to discern to be the meaning of "strong representation"

I want to say that there is NOTHING in the passage that DIRECTLY suggests that the younger sons of aristocratic families were "strongly" represented among those who joined the crusades. At best, it can only be a probabilistic consideration and that too very little.

That is what makes this question so hard. If you reject the word "strongly" from A or add a qualifier such that "among those belonging to aristocratic families, younger sons were strongly represented" then this question would be a slam dunk. However, in its current form, Option A is a major reach.

Bunuel   GMATNinja   MartyMurray

Dbrunik · Answer

im having a very hard time understanding how C is incorrect.

SomeOneUnique · Answer

Which of the following most logically completes the historian’s argument below?

Historian: The practice of primogeniture, under which only oldest sons inherit, had produced in Europe by the time of the Crusades a large population of aristocratic young men lacking any economic resources or prospects at home. For these men, joining a Crusade to the rich lands of the East would have seemed their only opportunity to acquire a fortune.

Therefore, it can reasonably be concluded, though there is little direct evidence on this point, that.

A. younger sons of aristocratic families were strongly represented among those who joined the Crusades 
 B. for most participants, economic motives for joining a Crusade outweighed all other motives 
 C. very few firstborn sons participated in the Crusades out of economic motives 
 D. no one with economic resources or prospects at home would have joined a Crusade 
 E. many younger sons who would otherwise never have had independent fortunes succeeded in acquiring such fortunes as a result of their participation in the Crusades

The correct option would be an option that provides lack of proof.

I eliminated B and C because the argument does not discuss the individuals and their motives. It just mentions the opportunities. 
 Similarly, I eliminated E because younger sons are not discussed in the argument; it is about the oldest son inheriting all. 
 A v. D 
 If we take D to be true then oldest son's economic background is immaterial; that son still has the privilege of inheriting all which is sufficient proof. Eliminate D. 
 A: There is no direct proof that younger sons did not join the Crusades. Hence A is the correct answer.

Alexgmattop · Answer

Very clear analysis, thanks for giving me a lot of ideas.

GMATNinja · Answer

The argument explains why younger sons of  aristocratic  families would have been motivated to join the crusades.

But we don't know anything about non-aristocratic families, which presumably represented the bulk of the population. It's likely (or at least possible) that in MOST families, there would have been little or nothing for the oldest sons to inherit -- those oldest sons could have very well been motivated to join the crusades for economic reasons.

sarthak1701 · Answer

Had the same thought and then it hit me, it slyly skips 'aristocratic' in the choice. It simply just says that many firstborn sons participated in the Crusades due to economic reasons, do we have any information about ALL firstborn sons joining the Crusades due to economic reasons? No. It is very much possible that the firstborn sons of common folk did participate in the crusades due to economic reasons.

consistentprep · Answer

Why A is correct?
"strongly represented" means present in large numbers relative to their own group — not necessarily compared to the entire Crusading population.

This conclusion does not require:
That younger sons were the majority of all Crusaders.
That younger sons were more represented than firstborns.

Historian: The practice of primogeniture, under which only oldest sons

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Historian: The practice of primogeniture, under which only oldest sons

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