A finding question that asks you to weaken a conclusion tests whether new evidence makes that conclusion less likely. Put the conclusion in a few words, including when something happened and what caused it. When several clues support it, track them all. Then predict what would weaken it: evidence that shows the result happened without the proposed cause or shows another cause explaining the same clues. Sharing a topic with the claim doesn’t make a finding count against it.
Hints
- Hint 1
Reread Moretti’s final sentence. Separate when the conventions entered the pamphlets from how they spread.
- Hint 2
Look back at the full set of shared conventions. Which features is Moretti trying to explain together?
- Hint 3
Could the whole set of conventions have entered at a different point from the one Moretti proposes?
Step-by-step
Test where the shared habits came from
Step 1Pin down Moretti’s claim
Moretti says the conventions entered before typesetting, when authors exchanged drafts as members of a coordinated political circle. Which claim needs challenging? She ties the shared habits to authors exchanging drafts, so we need evidence that makes that source or timing less likely.
- Step 2
Account for every shared habit
Which habits does her explanation have to cover? The pamphlets spell two disputed legal terms in the same unusual way and use a rare pattern of semicolons paired with marginal symbols. Let’s predict another source for all these habits, because explaining only one part would leave the rest of Moretti’s claim in place.
- Step 3
Find the gaps in the proposed sources
Do the proposed sources explain the habits in these pamphlets? The printers’ handbook lists them, but owning it doesn’t show that its conventions were used in these pamphlets. The workshops’ surviving books rarely used all three conventions together. The handwritten draft shows only the shared spellings before printing, while the freelance proofreader has no matching punctuation habit or evidence of work on these pamphlets. We still need evidence tying a source to all the habits.
- Step 4
Connect the full pattern to typesetting
The same itinerant compositor is one traveling worker who arranged the type for all four pamphlets. Why does his other work matter? Books he set also contain the conventions, so all the habits match his other work. That suggests the habits entered during printing rather than before typesetting, so the shared habits don’t need to have come from authors exchanging drafts. Choice A.