Logical reasoning PrepTest 118 · Section 3 · Question 18

Incorrect. This answer does bring up influence, but it's the wrong way. The stimulus says to understand something you need to understand its influences; this answer says to understand something you have to understand how it influences something else.

Incorrect. Close, but not quite! Here, to gain an understanding of something, historians are told to study similar situations, not situations that influenced the event.

Incorrect. If this answer said that appreciating French involves understanding the language it developed from, then it would be correct. However, instead of looking at the linguistic influence of the French language, it says to look at other languages that share that influence.

Incorrect. This answer is about understanding general practices and how they apply to a specific discipline, not the influences on that discipline. To bring it back to the stimulus, this answer would be correct if the stimulus were about understanding color theory, brush strokes, etc . . .

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Illustration (Principle)

Stimulus Summary:
Example. Scholars can better understand one artistic period by studying its influences, so overspecialization is unfortunate.

Answer Anticipation:
Yes, we summarized the example in the stimulus as "Example." Why? Because what it is an example of is stated and in this Illustration (Principle) we care about the principle that the example is meant to highlight. If the stimulus didn't state the principle then we'd need to derive it from the provided example. Since it does provide it we should focus on that as it'll determine what we're looking for in the answer choices.

Since we're given the principle we paraphrased it in our Summary but we want to generalize away from the topic of the stimulus to apply it to the answer choices since the correct answer doesn't have to be about art. (In fact in questions like this the topic matching is usually an indicator of an incorrect answer!) So removing any reference to art in the principle we get:
Something can be better understood if things that influenced its development are understood.

Let's find an answer that matches up with that principle!

Answer Explanation:
Plato as a mentor counts as an influence on Aristotle. As such this answer choice suggests studying an influence on Aristotle to understand Aristotle himself which illustrates the principle in the stimulus.

Key Takeaway:
When a Illustration (Principle) question—or any Principle question—states the principle in the text run with it! There's no need to figure out the principle if it's provided and that'll save you a good chunk of time.