The author refers to the study by Wickersheimer and Jacquart in order to
gmaramaraMarch 16, 2020
A vs. D
I chose A because of lines 10-12, but now that I look back, is A wrong because it is not specific enough to women? I find in this passage that because the question points out women specifically, I keep choosing broader answers because of the assumption that we are talking about women during medieval times, making answer choices harder for me.
Replies
Create a free account to read and
take part in forum discussions.
I think that your reassessment of A is exactly right. The question here is not "Which medical specialties were recognized during the middle ages?" The question is "Which specialties were women a part of?" This is what I am getting from lines 10-12. The previous misconception was that all female medical practitioners were midwives. The study by Wickersheimer and Jacquart is introduced to disprove this misconception. The conclusion of that study is quite clear. Midwives made up less than half of women practitioners, while the rest were in a variety of fields. This is why C is the correct answer.
When a question directs you to a specific part of the passage, make sure you consider how that specific part fits into the author's argument. In this case, look at the lines before and after the study.
You seem to understand that this whole passage is about women medical practitioners, but do not assume that this is implied in every question. You still have to answer questions specifically as they are written. This particular question stem does not say anything about women, you had to provide that information with an answer choice.
