Storytelling appears to be a universal aspect of both past and present cultures. Comparative study of traditional nar...

Christopher on May 12, 2018

@CSMengineer this question is asking for you to complete the argument with the conclusion, which means you need to look at which statement has the most support within the question. (A) provides a possible explanation for why stories are similar, but it also loses support when the author writes of "widely separated epochs and diverse cultures" meaning that there is little chance of the stories being passed around from culture to culture.

(C) on the other hand, suggests that the similarity among stories from these distant cultures arise from the common challenges and questions faced by human beings. This best explains the universal nature of these stories despite geographical and historical distance.

Cynthia-Lee on September 12, 2018

Can you explain why D wouldn't work? Isn't story telling is a universal aspect of both past and present culture as stated in the first sentence of the passage. Thank you.

Shiyi-Zhang on February 26, 2019

C seems to be too strong because of "all cultures". Why is it still correct?

Ravi on February 28, 2019

@Cynthia-Lee and @Shiyi-Zhang,

Happy to help.

(D) says, "Storytelling was no less important in ancient cultures than
it is in modern cultures."

The stimulus does tell us that storytelling is a universal aspect of
cultures. However, the stimulus tells us nothing about the importance
of storytelling in cultures relative to one another. It's entirely
possible that storytelling is more important than it used to be in our
culture as well as others. The evidence in the stimulus doesn't
support this, so we can get rid of (D).

(C) says, "Certain human concerns and interests arise in all of the
world's cultures."

It's easy to get caught up with the word "all" here, but it's
important to keep in mind that the word "certain" tells us that we're
only talking about some human concerns (which could even be just one
human concern) and that this question isn't a must be true question,
it's a most strongly supported question, which means that it doesn't
have to be true like a must be true question does. While it's true
that (C) isn't 100% something that must be true based on the stimulus,
it has quite a bit of support. Plus, the other answer choices are
completely off the mark, so even if we don't love this choice, we can
choose it via process of elimination.

Does this make sense? Let us know if you have any more questions!