Question severa
Several artworks found among the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii depict a female figure fishing with a cupid nearby. Some scholars have asserted that the figure is the goddess Venus, since she is known to have been linked with cupids in Roman culture, but University of Leicester archaeologist Carla Brain suggests that cupids may have also been associated with fishing generally. The fact that a cupid is shown near the female figure, therefore, blank
Which choice most logically completes the text?
is not conclusive evidence that the figure is Venus.
suggests that Venus was often depicted fishing.
eliminates the possibility that the figure is Venus.
would be difficult to account for if the figure is not Venus.
Several artworks found among the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Pompeii depict a female
Hard-difficulty · SAT Reading & Writing · Inferences — Conclusions implied but not stated. Read the question above, select your answer, and check the full explanation below to understand exactly why the correct choice works.
Answer explanation
Choice A is the best answer because it presents the conclusion that most logically completes the text’s discussion about the significance of the cupid found at Pompeii. The text indies that the cupid is near a statue of a female figure who is fishing, and it goes on to indie that because Venus is associated with cupids, some scholars believe the female figure to be the goddess Venus. But the text then says that, according to archaeologist Carla Brain, cupids may have also been associated with the activity of fishing, which, if true, would suggest that the mere appearance of a cupid near a female figure engaged in fishing does not indie with certainty that the figure is Venus (that is, the cupid might be associated with fishing, and the figure might be anyone at all).
Choice B is incorrect because the text says nothing about how often Venus was depicted fishing in Roman art: it only implies that in certain instances a female figure may or may not be Venus. Choice C is incorrect because Carla Brain’s proposed explanation for the presence of the cupids makes no reference to the female figure, and so the possibility that the figure in the artworks is in fact Venus cannot be definitively eliminated. Choice D is incorrect because there is nothing in the text to suggest that the only reasonable way to interpret the figure is as Venus.
More Inferences practice questions
- Researchers wanted to study how consumers’ reactions to an ad may be affected by
- Off-off-Broadway theaters emerged in the late 1950s as a rebellion against mainstream
- In documents called judicial opinions, judges explain the reasoning behind their legal
- An analysis by Alain Elayi and colleagues of coins minted in Sidon in the
- The domestic sweet potato ( Ipomoea batatas ) descends from a wild animal native
- The following text is from Anton Chekhov’s 1898 short story “Ionitch”
- For its 1974 work Instant Mural , the Chicano art collective Asco taped members
- Dutch painters in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries often showed tables filled with
Browse all Information and Ideas practice questions or return to the full SAT question bank.