PrepTest 132, Section 4, Question 10
Science journalist: Europa, a moon of Jupiter, is(49 more words not shown)
The science journalist's argument is(9 more words not shown)
- Atakes for granted(30 more words not shown)
- Bfails to address(21 more words not shown)
- Ctakes for granted(17 more words not shown)
- Doverlooks the possibility(17 more words not shown)
- Etakes for granted(23 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Water may be required for life. That doesn't mean water is all life needs.
Suppose Europa has the liquid oceans the data suggest. What about a suitable temperature, a source of energy, or other ingredients needed for life to develop? We aren't told whether the moon has those things. The water removes one possible obstacle, but other obstacles could remain.
What we’re looking for
That's why the conclusion goes too far even though it says “likely.” The journalist gives us one requirement and then predicts that life evolved. Without knowing whether other requirements are met, we don't have that prediction's missing support. For the flaw, look for the possibility that water alone isn't enough.
Working the answers
- A
This describes what a necessary condition means. If liquid water is required for life as we know it, that life cannot evolve without liquid water. Accepting that relationship isn't the mistake. The mistake is treating the presence of water as enough to make life's evolution likely.
- BCorrect
There may be additional requirements for life to evolve. If Europa lacks one of those requirements, its oceans wouldn't establish that life probably developed there. B identifies exactly what the water-to-life inference leaves unaddressed.
- C
Having evolved there and being present there now are different claims. Life might have evolved and later died out, or life present there might have originated elsewhere. The journalist concludes that life likely evolved on Europa; the argument doesn't require the two-way relationship between origin and present existence that C describes.
- D
Unfamiliar life that doesn't need water doesn't explain the gap in this argument. The journalist found evidence of water and used it to predict life's evolution. Our concern is that water may not be enough. Whether other kinds of life could develop without it addresses a different question.
- E
The journalist says the data strongly suggest liquid water, not that liquid water is the only imaginable explanation for the data. More importantly, we can accept the water evidence and still question the conclusion about life. B exposes that gap directly: other conditions needed for evolution might be missing.
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