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Difficulty: HardRhetorical Synthesis: Summarization and Generalization

While researching the decipherment of ancient scripts, a student takes the following notes:
* Linear B is an ancient script discovered in Crete in 1900.
* For decades, scholars believed that the script recorded a non-Greek Aegean language.
* In the 1940s, classicist Alice Kober identified patterns indicating that the underlying language was inflected.
* Building on Kober's structural analysis, Michael Ventris deciphered the script in 1952.
* The decipherment proved that Linear B represented Mycenaean Greek, rewriting the history of the Bronze Age Aegean.

The student wants to summarize the history and impact of the decipherment of Linear B. Which choice most effectively uses information from the given notes to accomplish this goal?

  1. Although scholars long believed that Linear B recorded a non-Greek language, its 1952 decipherment by Michael Ventris—which built on Alice Kober's identification of grammatical patterns—proved it was an early form of Greek, fundamentally altering the understanding of Bronze Age history.Answer
  2. B
    Discovered in Crete in 1900, the ancient script Linear B was analyzed in the 1940s by classicist Alice Kober, who discovered grammatical patterns showing that the language was inflected.
  3. C
    By proving that the ancient script Linear B was actually a form of Mycenaean Greek, Michael Ventris's 1952 decipherment settled a decades-long debate among scholars who had studied the script in Crete.
  4. D
    In 1952, Michael Ventris deciphered Linear B, an ancient script discovered in 1900, by demonstrating that the language was non-Greek and had no relation to Bronze Age Aegean history.

Answer

The correct option is the one stating that although scholars long believed Linear B recorded a non-Greek language, its 1952 decipherment by Michael Ventris—building on Alice Kober's grammatical analysis—proved it was an early form of Greek, altering the understanding of Bronze Age history.
The correct choice effectively summarizes the history of the decipherment of Linear B (moving from a long-held belief that it was non-Greek, through Kober's pattern recognition, to Ventris's final decipherment) and its impact (proving the language was Greek and changing the historical understanding of the Bronze Age).

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the prompt's rhetorical goal.
The goal is to summarize both the history of the decipherment of Linear B and its subsequent impact.
This establishes the criteria for evaluating the choices: a correct option must address both the historical process (including the role of Kober and Ventris) and the impact of the decipherment (proving it was Greek and rewriting Bronze Age history).
2
Evaluate the choices against the notes and the goal.
The option containing the full narrative of the initial false belief, Kober's pattern identification, Ventris's 1952 decipherment, and the resulting revision of Bronze Age history is the only option that fulfills both components.
Other choices either focus too narrowly on Kober, omit the historical impact, or misstate the facts.

Key Concept

Rhetorical Synthesis: Summarization and Generalization
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Topics

Rhetorical Synthesis: Summarization and Generalization

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