A question about two texts tests how one writer’s evidence affects another writer’s argument. Start with the question to find whose findings answer whose argument, then put each text’s main point in a few words. If the argument makes several claims, test each claim separately against the findings. Ask whether the evidence rejects a claim, limits it, or takes it further, and why. A response can go wrong by taking a finding about one claim as proof about the whole argument.
Hints
- Hint 1
Duarte’s findings are being used to judge Bell’s argument. Break Bell’s last sentence into the claims it makes.
- Hint 2
In Text 2, look for what Duarte compared after accounting for distance. Which link to early adoption did he find, and which did he not find?
- Hint 3
The last sentence of Text 2 tells you where the circulars traveled. Test each of Bell’s claims against both the adoption results and those routes.
Step-by-step
Test each part of Bell’s argument
Step 1Separate Bell’s claims
Bell’s clue is that the term reached inland trading towns, often before appearing in geographically closer villages. What does she take this pattern to show, and what will Duarte’s findings need to test? Bell makes two claims: trade connections mattered more than closeness, and the term spread through face-to-face exchanges among traveling merchants. One is about where the term traveled; the other is about how people received it.
- Step 2
Test the face-to-face explanation
Duarte reports his results after accounting for each town’s distance from a port, so he allowed for differences in distance. Which link remains after that? He finds that early adoption was strongly associated with receiving circulars containing the term, but not with the frequency of merchant visits. The term’s early arrival was linked to print, not more visits, which challenges Bell’s in-person explanation. A link alone doesn’t prove a cause, but these results weaken her claim that direct exchanges were the main way it spread.
- Step 3
Check what remains supported
Does this also weaken Bell’s view about trade connections? The circulars traveled chiefly along the same trade routes Bell had mapped, so print could have carried the term through the trade routes she mapped. Duarte’s findings qualify Bell’s argument, meaning they support part of it while challenging another part.
- Step 4
Match the reason to its target
Which choice challenges the right part of Bell’s argument? The response that would challenge Bell’s emphasis on trade networks questions the routes, not her claim about face-to-face contact. The choice pairing support Bell’s view with challenge her identification instead questions the means of transmission while keeping the trade-based pattern of spread. Choice A.