The conclusion here is the last sentence, i.e. "If the increase was not the result of false arrests, therefore, medieval France had a higher level of documented interpersonal violence in the years 1300 to 1400 than in the years 1200 to 1300."
How do we know this? Because the number of people arrested for "violent interpersonal crimes" between 1300 to 1400 increased by 30% over the number arrested for such crimes between 1200 to 1300.
This is a cause and effect argument. The observed effect the author is trying to explain is the 30% increase in the number of people arrested for "violent interpersonal crimes." The author's proposed cause is that medieval France had a higher level of documented interpersonal violence in the years 1300 to 1400 than in the years 1200 to 1300.
Remember that there are three ways to weaken a cause and effect argument: (1) alternate cause, (2) cause without effect or (3) effect without cause.
Answer choice (A) weakens this argument by introducing an alternate cause, i.e. it is not because there was a higher level of documented interpersonal violence but rather that the definition of "violent interpersonal crime" was expanded to include an increasing variety of interpersonal crimes that are actually nonviolent.
Hope this helps! Please let us know if you have any other questions.
alexpOctober 11, 2016
Why does it matter that the definition of violent interpersonal crimes changed? The stimulus says that France had a higher level of documented interpersonal violence in 1300-1400 than 1200-1300. Wouldn't the crimes have been documented as violent even if the criteria changed?
Also, is E incorrect because it is inconclusive? I'm assuming E would be correct up until the part about the plague. Thanks in advance!
dianalazarJanuary 29, 2022
How can you distinguish which questions are cause and affect and which are not
RaviFebruary 4, 2022
Cause and effect arguments will have one thing that is directly resulting (causing) something else. You can almost always diagram them using conditional logic, as they generally include conditional logic indicators.
RaviFebruary 4, 2022
E is incorrect because we don't know whether or not a lower or higher population would have an effect on violence because we're never told anything about that in the stimulus.
