A recently found collection of sonnets written by Shakespeare must

Premise:

1. The collection cannot not have been written earlier than 1595 because it refers a monument which was erected after 1595.
2. The collection cannot have been written after 1600 because it is written with a type of ink that Shakespeare is known to have stopped using when a better alternative was introduced on the market that year.

Conclusion: Collection of sonnets written by Shakespeare must have been finished after 1595 but before 1600.

(A) No stocks of the abandoned ink existed after 1600 Incorrect as it does impact the argument because it is clearly given that he did not use it purposely. So the existence or stock or not does not impact the argument.

(B) The parchment on which the sonnets are written cannot be tested accurately to determine its age. Incorrect as this refers to the age of the parchment (material) on which the sonets were written and not the sonnets. What if the material was made in 1500 then that does not mean that sonnets were written in 1500.

(C) The monument referenced in the sonnet was familiar to general public in 1595 Incorrect

(D) Shakespeare did not write the sonnets of the collection overall several years Correct what if Shakespeare write the sonnets over a period of several years. What if the sonnets were started in 1595 and continued till 1615. Negate this and the argument breaks

(E) Shakespeare's style of poetry did not change between 1595 and 1600 Incorrect as we do not know about the style of poetry or anything about sonnet for that matter.

Bunuel GMATNinja ...explanation please..

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Is the period from after 1595 and before 1600 is not several years, say if he started 1596 and ended by 1599, will 4 years will not be considered as several years?

D does strengthen the argument. But negation weakens the conclusion only if we keep the ink factor away. The sentence says with certainty that Shakespeare changed his ink.
According to my reasoning, I could find a loophole in A that makes it a better choice. Shakespeare changed the ink when the new ink came in the market, maybe the ink came in the mid of 1600 and he wrote the reference in the beginning of 1600. There is maybe or maybe not case, but seems like the only sane loophole that strengthens and weakens the argument

The author's reasoning has a reliance manly on 2 things errection of the building and availablity of Ink that was banned 🚫 so if we were to talk about building the year of erection is 1995 so this reasoning can't be questioned but on other hand He questioned the availability of the Ink and as it was banned in 1600 so he concludes that as he has used only that Ink he did not write any sonnet after 1600 the conclusion has a huge reliance on availablity of the ink And option A says that there no abandoned stocks of Ink was there that should be must true for the conclusion to be true so howcome this isn't the answer?

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Passage says that he started using the other ink because that was the better alternative that became available in the market post 1600. Doesn't mean that the older ink went out of the market.
Both the inks could be available and still Shakespeare could choose to use the new ink

If the monument was not familiar to public, then may be it was erected before and none knew. So, he could have written it before 1595.
Negation breaks the conclusion.
Yet, why 'c' is incorrect?

Negating option c:
If the monument was NOT familiar to public/author in 1595, it may have been erected before and none knew. He could have known and discussed the same before 1595.

This negation breaks the conclusion that the collection of sonnets was written between 1595 and 1600.

Option c says that the monument was known to General public. If you negate this, it would imply that general public did not know about the monument. But still, there is a possibility that the author knew about the monument and hence wrote about it.
Hence negation of option c won't necessarily make the conclusion wrong.

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+ The conclusion is that the piece must have been written between 1595 and 1600, not in 1595. So even if the author did not know about the monument in 1595, it would not make the conclusion invalid. Author may have got to know about the monument in 1597 and then wrote about it.

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Honestly, I think all of the answer choices are flawed. D doesn’t work, because the passage states that the collection is written with the ink that Shakespeare stopped using after 1600. Even if the collection were written over a number of years, that would still not weaken the argument’s conclusion, because the passage states that we know for a fact that Shakespeare discontinued his use of this ink after 1600, so that range of years would still be 1595-1600.

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How can d be the ans what if Shakespeare write sonnet for several years say
After1595to1599
And not from 1595to1605
Both the situations r possible then how it is negating it

Hi Experts,
Please explain the solution.. by point of elimination I was left with only option D but I still could not decipher why option D is the the answer.
Thank you

Hi i was left with only option D after method of elimination. After racking my brains for a long time, i narrowed down to this explaination : Lets say Shakespeare started writing sonnets in 1590 and the one of the sonnets which refer to the monument was written after its erection in 1595, then this will crumble the conclusion. Therefore for the range to lie between 1595-1600 D has to be true.

Since this is an ASSUMPTION question and the best way to solve this is to negate the choice and that should break the author's conclusion .

Conclusion : Shakespeare must have been finished writing sonnets after 1595 but before 1600. It cannot have been written earlier than 1595 and after 1600.

Premises :
1.one of the sonnets references a monument in London that was not erected until 1595.
2.it is written with a type of ink that Shakespeare is known to have stopped using after 1600

Our MAIN goal is to find something that will negate the conclusion, i.e, that will make us believe that Shakespeare might have written sonnets before 1595 OR after 1600. Note that OR is used because we just want to crack the conclusion which can be done in either way .

Option choices:

(A) No stocks of the abandoned ink existed after 1600
Incorrect : After negating we get that - Stocks of abandoned ink existed after 1600. Does it break the conclusion. A big NO. Even if the stock existed it is known that Shakespeare stopped using it after 1600.

(B) The parchment on which the sonnets are written cannot be tested accurately to determine its age.
Incorrect : Irrelevant. Shakespeare has written in those parchments only gives us one info that they were already available. Whether the parchments were made in 1400 or 1500 will not contribute in any way as the passage is concerned with the sonnets written in it.

(C) The monument referenced in the sonnet was familiar to general public in 1595
Incorrect : Irrelevant . We are concerned with Shakespeare and not general public.

(D) Shakespeare did not write the sonnets of the collection overall several years
Correct . Negation - Shakespeare did write the sonnets of the collection overall several years.
Now think what if this is true. This can be true in two ways :

1. What if Shakespeare started writing the sonnets before 1595. The passage tells us that one of the sonnets references a monument in London that was not erected until 1595. So what . Is it necessary to write about a building only after it was erected ? What if he referred to the building when it was under construction? Yes, it can be done . So this choice will negate the conclusion.

2.What if the Shakespeare completed the sonnets after 1600. The passage tells that Shakespeare is known to have stopped using a a type of ink when a better alternative was introduced on the market that year. So what. What if he wrote half the sonnets using a type of ink and other half using another type of ink. Yes, it can be done . So this choice will again negate the conclusion.

So this is our required choice.

(Note : Here we can also go ahead and consider a case where Shakespeare started writing sonnets in 1596 and completed in 1599, which does fall into the range. This doesn't negate the conclusion then.
But we need to make sure what our main goal is . We have to negate the choices and find something which will break the conclusion. And we did find not one but two such cases.
Many a times, we are too strict and leave a choice because it contains 2 scenarios and only 1 of them negates the conclusion. Simply avoid that.
We need to be clear that an ASSUMPTION is something that MUST ALWAYS BE TRUE. If we are able to find even a single case in which it breaks, that's our choice.)

(E) Shakespeare's style of poetry did not change between 1595 and 1600
Incorrect: Irrelevant . No relation has been given in the passage between Shakespeare's style of poetry and his timing of writing sonnets.