hard · GRE Verbal

Historians once held that a medieval kingdom's sudden prosperity stemmed from a new trade route. **A cache of merchant ledgers, recently deciphered, shows that the kingdom's wealth had already begun climbing two decades before the route opened.** One might object that the ledgers record only a handful of elite families and so cannot speak to the kingdom's economy as a whole. **But independent tax rolls from villages far from those families reveal the same early rise, so the ledgers' pattern reflects the broader economy rather than a narrow elite.** In the argument, the two boldfaced portions play which of the following roles?

1. The first is the main conclusion the argument reaches; the second is a further consideration that weakens and tells against that very conclusion.
2. The first is evidence offered in support of the main conclusion; the second is an objection to that conclusion which the argument simply leaves unanswered.
3. The first is evidence against the previously accepted view; the second is a conclusion that defends the reliability of that evidence against an objection.
4. The first is an objection that the argument considers and then rejects; the second is the argument's measured response to a separate, different objection.
5. The first is the overall conclusion the argument draws; the second is the specific body of evidence that establishes and secures that conclusion.

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