PrepTest 142, Section 1, Question 12
Archaeologists are discovering a great deal about the(38 more words not shown)
The conclusion drawn above follows(9 more words not shown)
- AIf a culture(12 more words not shown)
- BIf a culture(16 more words not shown)
- CIf a culture(13 more words not shown)
- DIf a culture(12 more words not shown)
- EIf a culture(12 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Maybe they smelted iron without giving it a distinct name. We might expect people who work with a metal to name it, but an expectation isn't a guarantee.
The excavations tell us about furnaces and copper and bronze tools. The language evidence gives us separate words for copper and bronze, but no separate word for iron. The conclusion goes beyond that: the Sals did not smelt iron. Could they have used a general word for several metals instead? Nothing here rules that out.
What we’re looking for
To make the conclusion follow, we need a rule making a distinct word a requirement for smelting a metal. Then the missing iron word would rule out iron smelting. Keep the activity precise: we're trying to establish that they didn't smelt iron, not that iron never existed there or that nobody had ever seen it.
Working the answers
- A
This goes from having a word to smelting the metal. We lack a word for iron, so that rule gives us no result for iron. It would still allow a culture to smelt an unnamed metal. We need a word to be required for smelting, not a word to be enough to establish smelting.
- B
The argument doesn't tell us the Sals were unfamiliar with iron. It tells us they lacked a distinct word. B doesn't let us infer unfamiliarity from that fact, and it doesn't connect unfamiliarity with the specific activity of smelting anyway.
- C
This connects smelting copper and bronze with words for copper and bronze. Those facts are already supplied, and neither is the disputed conclusion. A rule covering just these two metals doesn't settle what the Sals did with iron.
- D
The starting condition is that a culture did not smelt a metal. For iron, that is exactly what we need to prove. We can't assume the desired conclusion and then use what follows from it as our proof. D provides no route from the missing word to no smelting.
- ECorrect
Any metal a culture smelted would have a distinct word. So if the Sals had smelted iron, there would have been such a word for iron. There wasn't. That rules out their smelting it under this rule and establishes the conclusion. The answer supplies the exact connection between the language evidence and the activity we're trying to rule out.
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