PrepTest 112, Section 3, Question 16
Herpetologist: Some psychologists attribute complex reasoning to reptiles,(54 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(8 more words not shown)
- AAnimals could make(13 more words not shown)
- BSimple stimulus-response explanations(8 more words not shown)
- CReptile behavior appears(12 more words not shown)
- DIf reptiles were(16 more words not shown)
- EComplex reasoning and(10 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Being unable to change behavior isn't automatically the same as being unable to reason.
Think about a person who keeps drinking water because they need it. Failure to stop that behavior wouldn't show that nothing complex was happening in the person's mind. That example doesn't establish what reptiles can do; it helps separate a restriction on behavior from a limit on thought.
The herpetologist's evidence is stronger than one unchanged habit: experiments show that reptiles cannot make major alterations in their behavior. Even accepting that result, we still need a connection to the conclusion about complex reasoning. Why would a reptile's capacity for that kind of thought necessarily show up in its ability to change its behavior?
What we’re looking for
That's the required assumption I'd look for. If a reptile could reason in a complex way, it would sometimes be able to make a major behavioral change. Without that connection, the experiments don't establish the conclusion the herpetologist draws.
Working the answers
- A
This says complex reasoning is required for major behavioral changes. We need the ability to change behavior to follow from complex reasoning. Those are different rules.
Under A, every animal that makes major changes could reason, while some reasoning animals still couldn't make those changes. Reptiles could belong to that second group. Their inability to change therefore wouldn't establish that they lack complex reasoning. A leaves exactly the possibility the argument needs to rule out.
- B
Ruling out complex reasoning wouldn't require a complete simple stimulus-response explanation for every reptile behavior. Some behavior could involve another kind of process without involving complex reasoning. The author attacks the psychologists' attribution of that particular capacity, not every possible account other than simple stimulus and response.
- C
The argument doesn't compare how complex behavior looks in a laboratory with how complex it looks in the field. Its inference runs from an inability to make major changes to an inability to reason. C supplies a difference in appearances without connecting the two abilities.
- DCorrect
This makes complex reasoning carry a behavioral consequence: a reptile with that capacity would sometimes be able to make major changes. The experiments say reptiles cannot make those changes. With D's connection, that finding rules out the capacity the psychologists attribute to them.
If complex reasoning could exist without any such ability to change, the experiment wouldn't settle the matter. D closes that specific gap without requiring a detailed account of every reptile behavior.
- E
Reasoning and responses to stimuli could contribute to the same behavior in some animal without changing the herpetologist's argument about reptiles. The author doesn't need to separate the two processes everywhere. The needed claim is about what complex reasoning would enable reptiles to do, not whether two processes can ever operate together.
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