PrepTest 144, Section 3, Question 18
Field studies, which have long been a staple(48 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(9 more words not shown)
- AAnthropologists tend to(6 more words not shown)
- BIn a field(9 more words not shown)
- CField studies have(11 more words not shown)
- DMost anthropologists know(16 more words not shown)
- EMost anthropologists underestimate(14 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Does living with a community show you how its members normally live, or how they act when a researcher is around?
I can see the appeal of a field study. Instead of learning about people from a distance, the anthropologist lives among them. Maybe the community eventually treats the researcher like anyone else. But perhaps it continues to treat the researcher as an outsider, changing what the researcher gets to observe.
The author says anthropologists overrate the usefulness of this method. Why? They recognize that their presence affects the community, but underestimate how much. If the changes are larger than they realize, the observations may tell them less about ordinary community life than they think.
What we’re looking for
We could ask for evidence that anthropologists really do underestimate those effects. But the question asks for the conclusion, so identify the claim the author is using that point to support: field studies are overrated. The argument explains the method, judges its usefulness, then supplies a reason for that judgment.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
Overestimating the value of field studies restates overrating their usefulness. That is the judgment the author wants us to accept. The point about underestimating the effects of the researcher's presence is offered as the reason for it.
- B
This defines the method being evaluated. It tells us what happens in a field study, but doesn't express the author's judgment about how useful that method is. The argument moves from this background information to the claim that its usefulness is overrated.
- C
The long history of field studies is also background. The author doesn't argue that they have been central to anthropology; that fact helps introduce the familiar practice the author then criticizes. The conclusion concerns their value, not how long they have been used.
- D
This is something the author concedes before identifying the problem. Anthropologists aren't completely unaware that their presence matters. The criticism is that they underestimate the extent of the effect. D leaves out both that problem and the broader judgment it supports.
- E
This is the tempting reason, not the conclusion. Ask why the author says field studies are overrated: because anthropologists underestimate how much their presence changes the community. E supplies the 'because' part. A supplies the claim that this reason is supposed to make us believe.
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