Logical reasoning PrepTest 112 · Section 4 · Question 8

Question prompt

Archaeologist: The fact that Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: E

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Argument or Facts

Argument

Valid or Flawed

Flawed

Question Type

Errors in Reasoning Questions

Stimulus Summary

Phenomenon - Egyptians and the Maya both built pyramids
Explanation - There’s a link between them
Archaeologist - The buildings have some key differences, proving that there was no link between Old- and New-World civilizations

Answer Anticipation

Anytime a conclusion is framed in a way that makes it absolutely certain (“conclusively”), you should be suspicious. It’s very hard to prove something with no wiggle room - it’s why scientists are always saying things with “98+% certainty,” or why you hear so many “probably” or “almost certainly”s in conclusions. Such a level of certainty generally requires very strong premises - in fact, it’s rare to achieve such certainty without conditional logic backing up your claims!
So seeing the conclusion here is so strong should raise some red flags, and we should start our analysis seeing if the premises justify such a strong conclusion.
Here, the premises show that the pyramids built by one Old-World civilization and one New-World civilization had some key differences. Does that prove that no link between any Old- and New-World civilization existed? Nope! It doesn’t even prove there was no link between the Egyptians and the Maya! They could have shared pyramid technology with each other while using it for different purposes. Or they could have independently developed pyramids while still communicating for other purposes. And there could have been other Old- and New-World civilizations communicating outside of these two.
The premises here are nowhere near strong enough to justify a conclusive conclusion, so let’s find an answer pointing that out.

Answer choices

  1. A
    The argument equivocates with Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    “Evidence” is used only once, so it can’t shift in meaning.
  2. B
    The argument appeals to Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    The argument compares the purpose of pyramids in two civilizations - that’s not an emotional appeal.
  3. C
    The argument assumes the Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    This answer describes a Circular Reasoning flaw, but the premise here (that the purposes of pyramids in the two civilizations were different) doesn’t simply restate the conclusion.
  4. D
    The argument incorrectly relies Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    This answer is generally going to be correct only when a key term’s meaning shifts. We already established that that’s not true of “evidence,” and there are no other key terms that have their meaning changed throughout the argument.
  5. E
    The argument presumes that Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E matches the stem
    This answer doesn’t directly state that the premise is too weak, but it does something similar - it says the argument assumes that the premise is strong enough to support the conclusion. It does so by stating the argument treats it as the only relevant evidence (by assuming there is no other evidence).

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 5%
  2. B 2%
  3. C 8%
  4. D 3%
  5. E Credited 82%

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