PrepTest 120, Section 4, Question 24
New evidence suggests that the collapse of Egypt's(54 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(7 more words not shown)
- AHistorically, most civilizations(9 more words not shown)
- BThe social problems(18 more words not shown)
- CAt the time(17 more words not shown)
- DEgyptian records recovered(15 more words not shown)
- EShortly after the(20 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A drought sounds like a serious problem for a civilization that needs food and water. But was it enough to bring down the kingdom?
The author points to evidence of global cooling, which is generally associated with long droughts. That makes an environmental explanation plausible. Still, evidence of harsh conditions isn't by itself evidence that those conditions caused Egypt's collapse.
The author also acknowledges serious social problems. The claim isn't that those problems didn't exist; it's that they were themselves the result of the dry spell. So we shouldn't automatically treat every mention of social trouble as evidence against the author.
What we’re looking for
We need to strengthen the environmental explanation. I'd like something connecting the conditions with the collapse, rather than just repeating that Egypt had a drought or that its society was in trouble.
Working the answers
- A
A broad pattern in other civilizations doesn't identify what happened in Egypt. If anything, saying internal strife usually explains collapse makes that competing explanation worth considering. It doesn't give the environmental account of this particular collapse additional support.
- B
Serious social problems could have contributed to the collapse while the drought caused those problems. But B doesn't connect the problems to a drought. It establishes their potential destructive power and leaves the author's explanation of their source unsupported. That isn't the added evidence we need for an environmental cause.
- CCorrect
Several nearby civilizations declined suddenly at the same time, even though they were isolated from one another. That makes a shared regional problem more plausible than an explanation confined to Egypt's own internal troubles. Environmental conditions could affect separate societies at once.
The civilizations were also well established, so their sudden declines fit the idea of a disruptive event rather than merely unsuccessful new settlements. C doesn't prove a drought caused every decline. It gives the proposed environmental explanation a wider pattern to account for, making it more convincing.
- D
Records of a deteriorating society confirm something the author already grants: Egypt had serious social problems. The question is what produced that deterioration. Those records, as described, don't distinguish a drought-driven crisis from an independently arising social crisis.
- E
The civil war happened after the collapse. That doesn't identify what caused the earlier collapse. It could be part of the disorder that followed, and the answer gives us no connection from the war back to the environmental explanation we're trying to support.
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