PrepTest 113, Section 4, Question 10
Lydia: Red squirrels are known to make holes(113 more words not shown)
Lydia's argument proceeds(1 more words not shown)
- Adismissing potentially disconfirming(1 more words not shown)
- Bciting a general(9 more words not shown)
- Cpresenting an observed(9 more words not shown)
- Ddrawing an analogy(7 more words not shown)
- Erejecting a possible(6 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Sugar sounds like a reasonable guess. If the squirrels can get water easily elsewhere, why chew through bark just for water?
I still have questions. The sap is essentially water and sugar, but might a small amount of something else matter to the squirrels? Perhaps another nutrient is attractive. Or perhaps they prefer this source of water for some reason. Those are possibilities, not facts about squirrel diets. Lydia's explanation can make sense without being the only conceivable one.
Galina raises a different objection: the sugar is so dilute that the squirrels would need an enormous amount of sap to get much of it. That gives us something else to investigate. I wouldn't pretend we have settled what the squirrels actually want.
What we’re looking for
But this question asks how Lydia argues. She starts with two likely explanations, water and sugar, and gives a reason to reject water. She then favors sugar. I'd look for an answer describing the elimination of an alternative explanation, not a claim that she directly measured the squirrels' motives.
Working the answers
- A
Lydia doesn't dismiss an observation that challenges her conclusion. She uses information about the availability of water to reject a proposed explanation for drinking sap. An explanation is an account of why the behavior happens; it isn't the observed behavior or other data. A confuses rejecting that account with dismissing evidence.
- B
There isn't a general rule such as 'Squirrels always seek sugar' that Lydia applies to this case. She considers the sap's contents and the availability of water elsewhere. Those particular facts give her a reason to choose between the two proposed motives.
- C
Lydia isn't placing sap consumption in a broader observed pattern, such as comparing it with what squirrels eat in other settings. She is trying to explain this behavior using the alternatives water and sugar. The proposed explanation isn't a description of a larger pattern that has been observed.
- D
An analogy might compare the squirrels with another animal known to consume sap for sugar, then use that similarity to explain the squirrels. Lydia doesn't make that comparison. Her reasoning stays with these squirrels and rejects one of the proposed explanations for what they do.
- ECorrect
The observed phenomenon is the squirrels making holes and consuming sap. The alternative explanation Lydia rejects is that they want water. She rejects it because water is easily available without the trouble of chewing holes.
That leaves sugar as the more likely motive among the two she proposed. E describes the reasoning even if her starting alternatives aren't exhaustive or we still have questions about the water explanation. Identifying her method doesn't require proving that the squirrels really want sugar.
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