The Testament of William Thorpe was published around 1530 as an

Premise: Testament of William Thorpe --> published in 1530 --> Scholars doubt attribution to Thorpe
Examination – 1406 but Testament – 1460.

Scholar --> 1460 to be corrected to 1409 as roman numerals are confused.

(A) The sole evidence that historians have had that William Thorpe died no earlier than 1460 was the presumed date of publication of the Testament. – Incorrect. Weakens by supporting the date of Testament as 1460.

(B) In the preface to the 1530 publication, the editor attributes both works to William Thorpe. – Incorrect. There is only one work discussed here – a testament of William Thorpe.

(C) Few writers in fifteenth-century England marked dates in their works using only Roman numerals. – Incorrect. Okay they marked using roman numerals, but does this strengthen the hypothesis that the date has to be corrected? No.

(D) The Testament alludes to a date, "Friday, September 20," as apparently contemporaneous with the writing of the Testament, and September 20 fell on a Friday in 1409 but not in 1460. – Correct. Supports the hypothesis by stating that the year has to be corrected to 1409.

(E) The Testament contains few references to historical events that occurred later than 1406. – Incorrect. No effect on the scholar’s hypothesis.

Answer: D

This seemed to be a tricky question, especially with a couple of the choices. Let me take a stab at an explanation.



The argument boils down to:
1. Examination in 1406, Testament in 1460
2. Scholar states the date of the Testament be changed from 1460 to 1409 --> because:
3. Roman numerals for both years look similar, so can be confused



Question requests us to strengthen scholar's hypothesis: so we could do this by providing evidence that supports 1409 and/or opposes 1460

(A) The sole evidence that historians have had that William Thorpe died no earlier than 1460 was the presumed date of publication of the Testament. this could go either way- 1460 or 1409, because Thorpe died after 1460
(B) In the preface to the 1530 publication, the editor attributes both works to William Thorpe. irrelevant- does not reveal anything about the dates in question i.e., 1409 and 1460
(C) Few writers in fifteenth-century England marked dates in their works using only Roman numerals. irrelevant - few writers does not mean Thorpe was the only such writer to use roman numerals; also, does not help resolve the question above
(D) The Testament alludes to a date, "Friday, September 20," as apparently contemporaneous with the writing of the Testament, and September 20 fell on a Friday in 1409 but not in 1460. good choice- date mentioned in Testament refers to a date in the year 1409 - so this provides evidence that supports 1409
(E) The Testament contains few references to historical events that occurred later than 1406. initially a confusing choice, but realized this could go both ways- if the Testament were written in 1409 or 1460, it could have "few references" to events that occurred after 1406. Or, looked at in another way: if Testament were written in 1460, that does not mean it needs to have "many" references to events after 1406

D seems to be the best choice.

I was between C and D and incorrectly chose C. I am having the trouble seeing why C is wrong. If not many writers used roman numerals, one could assume the scribes may not have had much practice and hence made the careless error? Whereas if everyone used roman numerals, the scribes would have had practice and not made the error

D could just be a coincidence?

Hey,

I could not understand the meaning of the option A. I am no native speaker. To me, the sentence is grammatically convoluted. I tried to divide the sentence into chunks, and accordingly evidence turns out to be a presumed date, making the meaning illogical. Logically, presumed date should be 1460.

The sole evidence //subject// that historians have had //noun modifier modifying evidence// that William Thorpe died no earlier than 1460 //another noun modifier modifying evidence// was //verb// the presumed date of publication of the Testament. //object//

Please enlighten me.

Regards.

Hello, tyildirim92. I think you have done a fine job breaking down the sentence, much better than I could do if it were written in Turkish. If you straighten out the parts of the sentence, it may become easier to follow. I will boldface my alterations.

The presumed date of publication of the Testament has provided the only evidence for historians to conclude that William Thorpe died no earlier than 1460.

I think you will agree that this more active construct allows for an easier read, and also that this information provides no insight into supporting the scholar's hypothesis, which outlines how an I could have been transcribed as an L, thereby changing the apparent date of publication. Only choice (D) touches on the matter at hand, lending credence to the notion that the Testament was indeed written earlier.

I hope that helps clarify the issue. If you have further questions, feel free to ask.

- Andrew

Hi Experts, AnishPassiTGC GMATNinja VeritasKarishma
I am having trouble understanding why A is incorrect?

(A) The sole evidence that historians have had that William Thorpe died no earlier than 1460 was the presumed date of publication of the Testament.
If William died after 1460, Testament date have 2 possibility:
Case 1) Testament is dated 1409
Case 2) Testament is dated 1460.
After learning this new piece of info through option B, if it's case 1 then it increases my belief that 1460 could be 1409. It strengthens the hypothesis.
But if we consider the 2nd case, then it weakens the hypothesis. So how to decide which case needs to be considered while evaluating option A?

1406 and 1460 are many many years apart. It seems unlikely that someone writing the Examination in 1406 would add an addendum to it in 1460 (54 years later). Such a long productive lifespan is improbable, especially in those times. So scholars believe that Thorpe did not write Testament.
One scholar believes that Thorpe could have written it though in 1409. The dates might have become confused through scribal error because they are similar.

What would strengthen the theory of date error?

(A) The sole evidence that historians have had that William Thorpe died no earlier than 1460 was the presumed date of publication of the Testament.

There is no other evidence that Thorpe lived till 1460. A lack of found evidence doesn't mean there isn't any to be found and for that matter, lack of evidence doesn't mean it did not happen.
All this tells us that nothing else corroborates that he lived till 1960. Does it mean he did not live till 1960? No. He may or may not have.
In any case, let's look for a better option.
Sneha2021

(B) In the preface to the 1530 publication, the editor attributes both works to William Thorpe.

Irrelevant. We need to know what actually happened. What the editor did in 1530 doesn't matter.

(C) Few writers in fifteenth-century England marked dates in their works using only Roman numerals.

Irrelevant. The debate exists because there is no clarity on date.

(D) The Testament alludes to a date, "Friday, September 20," as apparently contemporaneous with the writing of the Testament, and September 20 fell on a Friday in 1409 but not in 1460.

Correct. The date "Friday, September 20" seems to be contemporaneous with the writing (at the same time as the writing). This holds in 1409 but not in 1460. Then it does seem that the author wanted to say 1409 all along and the whole 1460 thing is just an error.

(E) The Testament contains few references to historical events that occurred later than 1406.

Doesn't matter. A writing could certainly refer to events in the past only. It doesn't need to refer to current events. Option (D) makes a lot more sense.

Answer (D)

Hi Sneha,

I somehow missed your post earlier.

Your interpretation of option A

is:


I think that’s wrong.

What does the phrase “ William Thorpe died no earlier than 1460” mean?
William Thorpe died in 1460 or later.

What is the “presumed date of publication of the Testament”?
The presumed date is 1460.

So, the answer choice states that the ONLY evidence that historians have had that WT died in 1460 or later was the presumed date of publication of the Testament.
i.e., Historians have had no other evidence that WT died in 1460 or later.

The option isn’t telling us that WT died in 1460 or later. It’s telling us that the only reason historians believe WT died in or after 1460 is that they believe the Testament was published in 1460. Had the Testament evidence not been there, they would have perhaps thought that WT died sometime before 1460.

Does that make sense?

I have two clarifying questions for this problem:

1. I was a bit thrown off by the 1530 date at first. Was just the appendix published in 1530? I realize that this is not too important, but I just wanted to check my reading comprehension here. This felt like an OG math problem with all the dates

2. I understand why Choice D is the best, but I am confused on the OG's explanation as to why Choice A is wrong. Choice A says that the only evidence (using the word "sole") that historians have that Thorpe did not die before 1460 was what is believed to be the date of the publication of the Testament. Then Choice A's explanation says they may have no "biographical" evidence, but they could have other forms of evidence. Choice A just said "sole evidence"... where is this other evidence coming from.... what am I missing here?

Thank you in advance! My expert friends - all of your help is greatly appreciated!

woohoo921

1) That isn't spelled out. Typically, an appendix is a supplementary part of a book, so I'd expect to find the Testament at the back of a fancy edition of the Examination. However, it could also have been published separately. There's no way to tell from what we've been told.

2) Yeah, that is a bad explanation. (Again, while the OG questions are of high quality, the explanations often fall short.) Answer choice A never limits the absence of evidence to the realm of biographical evidence, and honestly, if the text talked all about the 1450's or something, why would we even be wondering about the date? The real problem is that we don't need to determine when Thorpe died. Nothing in the argument relies on this. All we have is "An error with the date would be easy to make, so this was probably not written so much later." We could criticize the argument for not making that case clearer. I mean, why is 1409 any more likely than 1460? Is it that unheard of to write a follow-up 54 years later? The author might have pushed their case by saying that Thorpe would not have been likely to have had such a long life or career. However, they don't, so questioning the evidence for Thorpe's longevity has no real bearing on the argument. If A told us that Thorpe died long before 1460, that would certainly strengthen (in that case, the date would have to be wrong!), but nothing is accomplished by attacking the evidence for a point that was never made.

If the option C had used "A few" instead of "Few" then could we have considered it as a better option?

Please enlighten

Due Regards.

Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.