PrepTest 111, Section 3, Question 26
People ought to take into account a discipline's(42 more words not shown)
The reasoning above is most(6 more words not shown)
- Afails to establish(8 more words not shown)
- Bfails to consider(13 more words not shown)
- Cuses an example(6 more words not shown)
- Ddoes not prove(16 more words not shown)
- Euses the word(5 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A discovery could come from someone with strange beliefs and still have scientific value.
That's why I hesitate at the proposed rule about a discipline's origins. Suppose a researcher began with a superstitious idea but made an observation that others could test. The researcher's starting belief wouldn't, by itself, tell us whether the observation was sound. I'd want to assess the work, not stop at the story of where it began.
The chemistry example tells us that alchemists obtained important results while superstition and appeals to magic dominated the field's early development. I can accept that historical description without yet seeing how it should affect an assessment of chemistry's scientific value.
What we’re looking for
For the flaw question, my first thought is that the author seems to repeat the point: we ought to consider blemished origins, and then we are told we must consider chemistry's origins. But the example also supplies historical information. We should ask what that information actually establishes, rather than settle for calling the argument repetitive.
Working the answers
- A
The argument concerns how to assess a field with suspect origins. It doesn't need to establish that every field with an unblemished history has scientific value. That would be a different rule about a different group. A doesn't identify the gap between the historical facts offered and their proposed relevance.
- BCorrect
This gives us a more specific problem than the repetition that first caught my attention. Chemistry's current theories and methods may differ from those used by the alchemists. The argument supplies information about early practices without considering how much of that information applies to the field now being evaluated.
If current work is tested and supported in ways the early work was not, the history alone doesn't settle its present scientific value. B doesn't require us to say that origins can never matter. It points to information the author needs to consider before using those origins in the proposed assessment.
- C
The chemistry example is intended to support the proposed rule about considering origins. It doesn't provide a case that contradicts that rule. We can question whether an example establishes a principle without treating it as evidence against the principle.
- D
This asks whether most fields with no scientific value have suspect origins. The argument starts with a suspect origin and says it should matter to assessment; it isn't trying to trace the origins of most fields already judged to have no scientific value. That different survey wouldn't resolve how chemistry's history bears on its present work.
- E
“Discipline” consistently means a field of study, such as chemistry. The argument never switches to discipline meaning self-control or training someone to follow rules. Repeating a word doesn't create an ambiguity unless its meaning actually changes.
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