LR Drill Set 6, Question 10
Injuries to the face sometimes adversely affect vision,(66 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(8 more words not shown)
- Ainferring from repeated(15 more words not shown)
- Bdrawing a conclusion(18 more words not shown)
- Ccontrasting two cases(18 more words not shown)
- Drejecting a hypothesis(12 more words not shown)
- Einferring from a(20 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Getting hit in the nose might leave your vision alone; an injury to an eye is a different matter. The passage explains that pattern by locating sight in a particular part of the face.
Now it notices a similar pattern with brain injuries. Some affect language and others don't. The author suggests that language, like sight, has a component that can be located within the larger structure. I can see the resemblance, but is the brain organized like the face? Perhaps it is; we haven't been given enough to settle that by ourselves. A similar injury pattern is being used to suggest a similar arrangement of parts.
What we’re looking for
The question asks how the argument reasons, so we don't need to decide whether the comparison ultimately succeeds. Follow its direction: start with the familiar relationship between eyes and face, then use it to suggest a less obvious relationship between a language component and the brain. That's an analogy. The correct description should capture how the easier case is used to illuminate the harder one.
Working the answers
- A
The passage mentions accumulating research, but it doesn't compare how general a conclusion we can draw in each case. Its move is from a familiar example to a proposed similarity in another system. Simply mentioning findings doesn't make this a comparison between broader and narrower generalizations.
- BCorrect
The obvious case is sight: the eyes are a particular part of the face, so not every facial injury affects vision. The less obvious claim is that language likewise has a particular location within the brain. Because brain injuries sometimes spare language, the author draws an analogy to facial injuries sometimes sparing sight and suggests a comparable organization. B captures both the comparison and the direction of the inference.
- C
The argument relies on a resemblance, not a difference. Both larger structures can suffer injuries that sometimes affect the relevant ability and sometimes don't. We might object that faces and brains differ, but that would be our criticism of the analogy, not the method the author uses to reach the conclusion.
- D
The author proposes a hypothesis about the location of language; the passage doesn't reject a stated competing hypothesis. No alternative account is presented and then discarded in favor of the data. D describes an argumentative exchange that never occurs here.
- E
This would transfer a property of a part to the whole—something like saying an eye sees and therefore treating that ability as a property of the entire face. The author instead uses one part-whole arrangement as a model for another. Eyes stand to face as a proposed language component stands to brain. That comparison isn't the part-to-whole inference E describes.
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