One of the key questions historical criticism attempts to answer is: What were the common beliefs that people of the time embraced?

a. True

b. False

B) False, one of the key questions historical criticism attempts to answer is: to "understand the world behind the text." For this, they would have to look at the text's history and interpret it's literature. To fully analyze this, historical criticism would first look at the text literally and then reconstruct this to see who the author and the audience of the piece of literature would be.