Logical reasoning PrepTest 120 · Section 4 · Question 24

Incorrect. If anything, this suggests that internal strife is more likely to be the cause, which would weaken this argument. That said, the argument has already tied Egypt's social strife to environmental problems.

Incorrect. This answer either weakens the argument by suggesting an alternative cause, or it repeats that the drought was a cause of collapse via the social issues, since the stimulus already established that the social issues were caused by the drought. Either way,

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Strengthen

Stimulus Summary:
Conclusion - Egypt's old kingdom collapse was caused by environmental catastrophe
Support - Ocean sediments show the globe cooled at the time, which is associated with drought

Answer Anticipation:
The argument here starts out with a causal explanation for a phenomenon, meaning that it's almost certainly the conclusion and we're almost certainly dealing with a Correlation/Causation flaw. That's a lot of information to be able to determine from the opening line! But causal conclusions are almost always flawed because they are based on correlations, and the Correlation/Causation flaw is very common in Strengthen questions, so it's something we should anticipate right away.

That anticipation makes it a lot easier to see that the premises are correlative. They state that the collapse happened around the same time as a period of global cooling, and those periods are "associated with" extended droughts—another correlation. So we have a Correlation/Causation flaw, and we can strengthen it with the usual answer choices:
(1) Eliminate an alternative cause - but be careful here! The stimulus already notes that social upheaval was caused by the drought, so eliminating that possibility doesn't help
(2) Find more examples of cause and effect going together - Other societies that collapsed because of extended droughts during global cooling would help the argument for causality
(3) Control group - Societies that didn't collapse when the environment was fine, though that link seems especially tenuous so we shouldn't expect it in a correct answer

Answer Explanation:
This answer falls into the second category of common answers—it provides more examples of the cause and effect going together. If several other isolated civilizations also collapsed at this time, then something that could have affected all of them is more likely to be the cause. That's a check in the environmental catastrophe column (since it's related to global cooling), and a strike against societal issues since they couldn't have spread between isolated civilizations.

Key Takeaway:
Strengthen questions feature Correlation/Causation flaws more often than any other error in reasoning. Be actively looking for this flaw in this question type!

Incorrect. It's a given that the old kingdom collapsed at this time, so this answer doesn't add support for that idea. And it doesn't address why it happened, which is what the conclusion is about.

Incorrect. What happened after the collapse is immaterial to what caused the collapse, absent a premise connecting the two.