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.

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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).

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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.

.
 
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.

.
 
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.

.

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.

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?

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!

Dbrunik · Answer

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

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.

Usernamevisible · Answer

MartyMurray

My doubt with option A is that the passage only tells us there was a large population of younger aristocratic sons who lacked economic prospects and therefore had a strong incentive to join the Crusades. However, it does not tell us anything about the overall composition of the Crusades. It is possible that people from poorer or middle-class backgrounds joined in much larger numbers. So I felt that saying younger aristocratic sons were “strongly represented” among Crusaders requires relative information about other groups, which the passage does not provide.

Because of that, I was more inclined toward option C. My reasoning was that firstborn sons inherited wealth under primogeniture, so unlike younger sons, they generally would not have had economic reasons to join the Crusades. Therefore, it seemed reasonable to infer that very few firstborn sons participated out of economic motives, even if they may still have joined for religious or other reasons.

And also by saying "very few" we are keeping live the possibility that some could have joined so not being extreme in choice and playing safe.

guddo · 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. 
The historian argues that many younger aristocratic sons had no inheritance or prospects at home, and that joining a Crusade would have seemed to them like their only chance to gain wealth.  So the safest conclusion  is that such men were likely common among Crusade participants. The argument supports a claim about  who was likely motivated to join , not about whether they actually became wealthy.

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

Correct. If many younger aristocratic sons lacked prospects at home and saw the Crusades as their only chance for fortune, it is reasonable to infer that many of them joined.

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

Wrong. Too broad. The evidence concerns aristocratic younger sons, not most Crusade participants overall.

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

Wrong. The argument says younger sons had strong economic motives, but it does not tell us how many firstborn sons joined or why.

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

Wrong. Far too strong. People with resources could have joined for religious, political, military, or other reasons.

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

Wrong. The argument supports that they may have joined hoping for wealth, not that many actually succeeded.

Answer: (A)

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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