SAT OwlQuestion bank / Central Ideas and Details
Readers of medieval manuscripts are sometimes surprised by what appears in the margins: knights battling giant snails, rabbits hunting people, monkeys playing instruments. Scholars once dismissed these drawings as idle doodles by bored scribes. Many now argue that the images often comment on the main text, poking fun at its subject or playfully turning upside down the order it describes. In this view, the margins were not separate from the serious work on the page but in conversation with it.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
Images of knights fighting snails were the most common kind of drawing in medieval margins.
Many scholars now see the odd drawings in medieval manuscript margins as responses to the main text rather than as meaningless doodles.
Medieval scribes drew in the margins mainly because they were bored with copying.
Medieval readers objected to drawings that made fun of serious texts.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B
The text contrasts an older view (the drawings were idle doodles) with the view many scholars hold now (the drawings comment on and interact with the main text). The final sentence sums up the newer view. Choice B states it.
Choice C is the older view that the text says scholars have largely moved away from.
Why the other choices are wrong
- A. The text mentions knights and snails only as one example of many types of drawings. It does not claim these were the most common images in medieval manuscripts.
- C. This reflects the older view that scholars once held. The passage states that many scholars now argue the drawings are meaningful comments on the main text, not just idle doodles.
- D. The passage never mentions how medieval readers felt about the drawings. It focuses on modern scholarly interpretations of the relationship between the margins and the main text.
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