L 1.3.7 Quiz: Analyze a Supreme Court Decision Question 7 of 10
If a reader wants to evaluate a text, which is the best question to ask while
reading it?
A. What elements do I find interesting, and do I care about the
author's purpose?
B. How does this text affect me and what I want to say to the world?
C. How many hours of research did the author put into writing this
text?
D. What elements are used, and do they help the author's purpose?
SUBMIT

Read this paragraph from chapter 5 of the prince. there are, for example, the spartans and the romans. the spartans held athens and thebes, establishing there an oligarchy: nevertheless they lost them. the romans, in order to hold capua, carthage, and numantia, dismantled them, and did not lose them. they wished to hold greece as the spartans held it, making it free and permitting its laws, and did not succeed. so to hold it they were compelled to dismantle many cities in the country, for in truth there is no safe way to retain them otherwise than by ruining them. and he who becomes master of a city accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it, may expect to be destroyed by it, for in rebellion it has always the watchword of liberty and its ancient privileges as a rallying point, which neither time nor benefits will ever cause it to forget. and whatever you may do or provide against, they never forget that name or their privileges unless they are disunited or dispersed, but at every chance they immediately rally to them, as pisa after the hundred years she had been held in bondage by the florentines. what idea is stressed in the passage? the desire for liberty the establishment of an oligarchy the dismantling of an acquired state the tendency toward rebellion