A student notes question that asks you to evaluate an account tests how well you weigh findings against someone’s claim. Read the goal first, and list every demand it makes. Compare what the claim says happened and when with the findings, asking what each finding can show. Changes that occur together can show a link, but they don’t prove cause. Reject sentences that draw a stronger conclusion than the notes support.
Hints
- Hint 1
Read the goal and separate its two demands: evaluate Hale’s findings against Mora’s account, and stay within what those findings can show.
- Hint 2
Look for the dates tied to each publishing format. How do those dates line up with the expansion Mora describes?
- Hint 3
Check Hale’s limit on the evidence in the final note. What can frequency patterns show, and what can’t they prove?
Step-by-step
Weigh the findings against the account
Step 1Read both demands
Read evaluate how Hale’s findings bear on Mora’s account in the goal: we’re weighing his results against her claim, not summarizing his study. What limit does the goal add? It says without making an unsupported causal claim, so we can’t turn a link into proof of cause.
- Step 2
Separate Mora’s two claims
What does Mora give syndication credit for? She says syndication’s expansion during the 1890s initiated the widespread use of cliffhanger endings and made them a standard convention. Starting the broad rise and making cliffhangers standard are separate claims, so we’ll check the starting date as well as how common cliffhangers became.
- Step 3
Compare the rises
In nationally syndicated serials, cliffhanger use rose from 48 percent in 1888 to 81 percent in 1898, which fits Mora’s account of cliffhangers becoming standard. Does that also show that syndication started the broader rise? Regional magazine use rose from 22 percent in 1870 to 45 percent in 1885, before the 1890s expansion. Growing regional use points to an earlier start for the broader trend, but it doesn’t prove that cliffhangers were already a national standard.
- Step 4
Check the causal limit
What wording stays within Hale’s limit? He says frequency patterns cannot demonstrate that one publishing format directly caused changes in another. The choice using consistent with and suggests leaves cause unproven, because those phrases describe how the findings fit Mora’s account instead of saying that syndication produced the changes. Choice B.