PrepTest 128, Section 3, Question 10
Biologists often announce that a certain kind of(83 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(29 more words not shown)
- AIt provides evidence(9 more words not shown)
- BIt is the(4 more words not shown)
- CIt is an(24 more words not shown)
- DIt calls into(10 more words not shown)
- EIt addresses a(15 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Using a stick to find ants or a stone to crack nuts sounds like a recognizable case of using a tool. But calling a squirrel's shortcut across a building tool use feels much broader. Isn't that just using the surroundings?
The author gives a definition that explains the broader claim. If an animal achieves its purpose through an external physical object, that object can count as a tool. Under that definition, mud used to escape a predator and a building used as a shortcut can qualify along with sticks and stones.
We might still question whether that is the most useful definition, or whether the examples establish the claim about all animals. But notice what the author uses them to support: reports of animals using tools shouldn't surprise us. The examples and the broad definition are meant to make tool use seem ordinary.
What we’re looking for
The question asks about the role of that “unsurprising” claim. It's the conclusion. Its position in the middle of the paragraph doesn't change that role; the sentences after it explain why we should accept it.
Working the answers
- A
The author doesn't use the lack of surprise to establish that the animals act purposefully. The purposeful activities and the broad definition support the judgment that tool use is unsurprising. A gets the direction of support wrong.
- BCorrect
The author wants us to accept that these announcements are unsurprising. The claim that all animals use tools, the examples, and the definition are offered to support that judgment. The biologists' announcements introduce the subject to which the author responds.
- C
Try connecting the two ideas with “because.” The announcements are unsurprising because this broad definition makes ordinary animal behavior count as tool use. That matches the argument.
Now try the other direction: we should accept the broad definition because the announcements are unsurprising. That doesn't describe the author's reasoning. C treats the surprise claim as support for the definition when the definition actually supports the surprise claim.
- D
The claim under discussion judges how surprising the announcements are. It doesn't itself attack the basis for the biologists' definition. The author supplies a broad definition later, but the particular statement we're classifying remains the conclusion supported by that discussion.
- E
The argument doesn't identify an ambiguity in the biologists' use of “external.” That word appears in the author's own definition, and no competing meanings of it are developed. We shouldn't turn the presence of a definition into evidence of a dispute about an ambiguous word.
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