A question about two texts tests how one author would respond to the other's claim. Read the question to find who responds to which author and which claim they answer. Sum up what each author argues and why. Then describe the response: disagree with the claim, accept it with a limit, or apply it to a new case. The reason decides between responses that take the same position, so check what the answering author actually says.
Hints
- Hint 1
Read Maren's final sentence. Separate what she thinks the invoices show from what she says they don't prove.
- Hint 2
In Text 2, look for what Sovic accepts and what he leaves uncertain. Read the opening caution together with the rest of the paragraph.
- Hint 3
What kind of claim does Sovic warn against in his first sentence? Compare that warning with Maren's claim about practical authority.
Step-by-step
Match the agreement and the limit
Step 1Settle what Maren claims
Read Maren's final sentence: she argues that the rolls understate women's practical authority in the trade. We're judging that claim from Sovic's point of view, so what does she mean by practical authority? Ordering dye and paying finishers show power to direct the business, even though the invoices don't establish that the women had guild privileges.
- Step 2
Find Sovic's caution and agreement
Sovic warns against treating women in supplier records as long-term independent proprietors, meaning people who owned and ran their own businesses for a long time. Does he deny their work in the trade? Many kept workshops running until a son became a master, while some controlled looms and dye stocks for years. His conclusion says the rolls concealed some women's work, so he accepts their commercial role.
- Step 3
Separate practical authority from lasting status
What does that warning change about Maren's claim? Temporary management can still involve practical authority, since a widow can direct work while keeping a workshop active until her son becomes a master. Sovic would accept Maren's main point while adding a limit: buying supplies doesn't by itself prove lasting independent control. He also leaves the extent and institutional status of that work uncertain, which covers both how widespread women's work was and their place within the guild.
- Step 4
Match the response to Sovic's reason
The response warning of temporary management rather than lasting status gives Sovic's actual reason for caution: invoices don't automatically show long-term independent proprietors. Its opening accepts that the invoices challenge the view that women had little commercial role, while its warning leaves the women's lasting position uncertain. Choice A.