PrepTest 148, Section 4, Question 22
Scientists once believed that the oversized head, long(59 more words not shown)
The answer to which one(11 more words not shown)
- AWas the ratio(21 more words not shown)
- BAt what stage(9 more words not shown)
- CWas T. rex(6 more words not shown)
- DWas the species(12 more words not shown)
- EDid the recently(14 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What if the little dinosaur was a baby?
At first, the discovery looks like a good objection. If a huge body explains those distinctive features, why does a much smaller dinosaur have them too? But the size of a skeleton at death needn't tell us how large that animal would have become. A young dinosaur could already have features suited to the much heavier adult it would have grown into.
What we’re looking for
For the evaluate question, I'd want to know whether we found a small adult or a young animal with growing left to do. We don't need to claim the scientists identified the wrong species. Even a member of the earlier species could have died while still young.
Working the answers
- A
We're already told that the specimen had the characteristic features. Their ratios needn't be exactly identical for the smaller animal to raise a question about the size explanation. A more precise head-to-body comparison doesn't directly tell us whether this was an animal that stayed small or one that would have grown much larger.
- BCorrect
Its age at death tells us how to interpret the small size. If it was a mature adult, we have evidence of an animal with those features despite remaining much smaller and lighter. That supports questioning whether enormous size was the reason for the features.
If it was very young, however, its small skeleton may not be a counterexample at all. It could have grown into a large animal, with the relevant features already developing before it reached adult size. Those two answers affect the argument in different directions, which is exactly what makes this a useful question.
- C
T. rex could have needed features accommodating its great size without being the largest predator of all. The existence of an even larger animal wouldn't settle why T. rex had those features or whether this small specimen challenges the explanation. Absolute first place in size isn't required.
- D
Being related could help us understand why the species share features, so this isn't a pointless question. But either a relative or an unrelated animal could have died young or fully grown. Relationship alone doesn't resolve the direct problem with using this specimen's small size as evidence against an adaptation to great adult size.
- E
The proposed explanation concerns the predator's own size and weight, not the size of its prey. Prey size might contribute to some other explanation of the features, but this question doesn't directly test whether the small skeleton is a good counterexample to the explanation being challenged.
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