A finding question that asks you to favor one account over another tests whether evidence can tell their claims apart. Use the question to find the account to support, then put both accounts in a few words. Ask who causes the change, what changes, and what stays the same. Split the favored account into parts and predict evidence that shows each one and how it differs from the other account. A finding that’s only half right can support one part while failing the full claim.
Hints
- Hint 1
Find the sentence beginning “Moreau argues” and separate the proposed cause from what changes.
- Hint 2
Moreau’s last sentence mentions different kinds of writing. Look for how the intended readers matter.
- Hint 3
What does Moreau’s account say about speech, beyond document spelling? Test that part of the account too.
Step-by-step
Check the full account
Step 1Separate the two accounts
The historians read uniform commercial spelling as a sign that regional differences in speech declined. What does the question ask us to support instead? Moreau offers another reason for the spelling pattern, so we need evidence that tells the accounts apart, not another report of uniform commercial spelling.
- Step 2
Predict what every part needs
Moreau names professional clerks circulating among ports as the source of the shared spelling. Which parts must a finding show? We’d expect clerks to use common spellings for distant readers while retaining regional forms in less formal writing and speech. Comparing the same people across those kinds of writing and speech could show a change in writing for different readers, not a loss of regional language, which is the difference we’re looking for.
- Step 3
Test the clerks’ role
Can each finding show that the clerks could have spread a shared written register? Merchants who already used shared spellings before those clerks arrived leave no link between shared spelling and the clerks’ work. Clerks using regional spellings of each destination port are following different local systems instead of spreading one shared system.
- Step 4
Use speech to settle the comparison
What happens to speech in the findings that compare the same clerks’ contracts and family notes? Transcripts showing declining regional variation support the historians, not Moreau’s claim that spelling can spread without changing how people spoke. When transcripts preserve those regional forms, the clerks’ use of shared contract spellings but regional family-note spellings shows different writing for different readers, with regional speech still present. Choice A.