SAT Reading & Writing · Central Ideas and Details
A historian examining merchant correspondence from an eighteenth-century port found repeated complaints that official shipping registers…
A historian examining merchant correspondence from an eighteenth-century port found repeated complaints that official shipping registers understated the volume of coastal trade. Yet the letters themselves were written mainly by merchants seeking reduced port fees, giving them a reason to emphasize the importance of commerce. Instead of treating either source as decisive, the historian used discrepancies between the two to identify periods that warranted comparison with customs records and ship manifests.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
Answer and explanation
Answer: C: Conflicting sources can be useful when their limitations are considered and the disagreement guides further verification.
The historian neither accepts nor rejects either source outright. The central idea is methodological: disagreement becomes useful when source incentives are recognized and additional evidence is sought.
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