SAT OwlQuestion bank / Central Ideas and Details
Historians have long described the eighteenth-century coffeehouses of London as engines of democratic debate, places where a shopkeeper and a lord could argue as equals. Historian Rafael Ordonez does not dispute that such exchanges happened, but he cautions against treating them as typical. Drawing on the account books of several coffeehouses, he shows that most establishments served narrow clienteles, such as shipping merchants or lawyers, and that strangers were often met with suspicion. The open, mixed debate of popular memory, Ordonez argues, was the exception that later writers mistook for the rule.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
Ordonez argues that London coffeehouses were rarely places where debate of any kind occurred.
Ordonez contends that the image of coffeehouses as socially mixed forums overstates how common such mixing was.
Ordonez shows that shipping merchants and lawyers produced most of the political ideas of eighteenth-century London.
Ordonez claims that later writers invented the debates between shopkeepers and lords that they described.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B
Ordonez accepts that mixed debates happened but argues they were not typical, since most coffeehouses served narrow groups and distrusted strangers. His conclusion is that later writers mistook the exception for the rule. Choice B matches this qualified claim: the popular image exaggerates how common social mixing was.
Choice D is tempting, but the text says Ordonez "does not dispute that such exchanges happened," so he does not claim they were invented.
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