PrepTest 153

Incorrect. This would tend to weaken the argument, by giving Arrian a good motive to publish under someone else's name—he might have wanted his own ideas to get the exposure they could only get when written under the name of his famous teacher.

Incorrect. Again, this is either neutral or weakens the argument. If Arrian's ideas (or, what we think were Arrian's ideas) are in The Discourses, it might be because he wrote the book himself. Or, maybe he just learned those ideas from Epictetus.

Incorrect. Probably neutral, since just looking up to someone who published falsely-attributed works doesn't necessarily mean Arrian did the same, but could be seen as slightly weakening the argument.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Strengthen

Stimulus Summary:
A book by a particular Roman philosopher is believed to have been transcribed by his student, based on lectures the philosopher gave. But some people think the student is the real author of this prominent text, and just put his teacher's name on it. However, our author says that's highly unlikely, because the philosopher's views were well-known. If his student inserted his own views in a book published under the philosopher's name, he'd have gotten caught for sure.

Answer Anticipation:
We're looking to strengthen the conclusion that deception was "highly unlikely" here, so we need to help bolster the argument that Arrian didn't write The Discourses himself. Right now the only reason we have to believe Arrian wasn't the author is that if he did commit this particular deception, he'd have been exposed. But are we sure we'd know today if Arrian was exposed as a fraud in ancient Rome? Are we sure he'd even have minded being thus exposed? Was he aware that committing this deception would lead to exposure? Were there consequences for fraudulent publishing of philosophical treatises in ancient Rome? Answering any of these questions might help to strengthen the argument.

Answer Explanation:
We don't know from the stimulus what the consequences would have been for Arrian if he was exposed for publishing his own views under his teacher's name. This fills in that blank: he'd have lost status. So, it gives Arrian a reason to care about the premise that tells us he would definitely have been exposed. Therefore, this strengthens the argument.

Key Takeaway:
Beware the neutral answer choice in Strengthen/Weaken questions. In either of these categories, any answer that neither strengthens nor weakens is incorrect. If you feel like all of the answer choices are neutral, read them all again, this time looking specifically for how each answer choice might combine with the premises in the stimulus to affect the conclusion. As in this case, often something that's uninteresting on a casual read turns out to be very impactful once you consider how it interacts with another premise.

Incorrect. Too vague to do anything useful here. Just knowing he held these positions doesn't tell us anything about his motivation, or lack thereof, to write a book and slap someone else's name on it.