Logical reasoning PrepTest 135 · Section 4 · Question 7

Question prompt

The ruins of the Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: A

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

Argument Evaluation Questions

Stimulus Summary

Hypothesis: The 40 ton stones that made a city were brought from 90km away on reed boats.
Test: The researchers used locally available materials and traditional techniques to move a 9-ton stone that distance.

Answer Anticipation

The hypothesis in this case is supported by an experiment, so we should note any discrepancies between the experiment and what it’s attempting to prove to know what questions we should ask to evaluate the hypothesis. And there are two big discrepancies.
First, the stones making up Tiwanaku weighed up to 40 tons, but the experiment only involved a 9-ton stone. It would be helpful to know if the reed boats could scale up. Second, the reed boats were made with local materials and traditional techniques. It would be helpful to know if those materials and techniques were the same ones as at the time the city was built (foliage in an area can change, and the traditional techniques may have developed later).

Answer choices

  1. A
    whether the traditional techniques Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A matches the stem
    Knowing whether the traditional techniques were available at the time of building the city would help in evaluating the hypothesis. If they were, then the experiment done by the archaeologists is more directly applicable to the situation and their results are better than if those techniques were developed centuries after the city was built.
  2. B
    whether green andacite stones Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    The stimulus establishes that these stones were quarried at Copacabana, so we don’t need any information establishing that they are from there or were used in that area.
  3. C
    whether reed boats are Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    It only matters if these boats were used in prehistoric times, not today. And being used today doesn’t support their use in prehistoric times, any more than us using computers today means that cavemen had the internet.
  4. D
    whether the green andacite Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    The relative size of other stones doesn’t matter to the hypothesis.
  5. E
    whether the reed boat Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    Only if it were established that the reed boats used to build the city must have been in use for several years would this piece of information help in evaluating the hypothesis. However, since there’s no indication that’s the case, this answer is out of scope.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A Credited 91%
  2. B 3%
  3. C 1%
  4. D 4%
  5. E 1%

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