PrepTest 149, Section 3, Question 2
Domestication of animals is a cooperative activity, and(26 more words not shown)
A flaw in the argument(4 more words not shown)
- Aconflates being necessary(13 more words not shown)
- Btakes for granted(7 more words not shown)
- Cinfers that the(19 more words not shown)
- Ddraws a conclusion(11 more words not shown)
- Eassumes that if(14 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Useful for something doesn't mean invented for that purpose.
Language can help people cooperate in domesticating animals. We can accept that without accepting the proposed account of how language developed. What if people first developed language to communicate about something else, then found it useful for domestication too? A later use wouldn't establish the original reason for its development.
There's another question: is language the only way to achieve the communication this activity needs? Perhaps signals or gestures could provide enough communication in some circumstances. The passage identifies one way to communicate; it doesn't establish that domestication couldn't occur without that particular way.
What we’re looking for
For the flaw, those are the gaps I'd keep in mind. The biggest leap is from what language can help us do to why language developed. We need evidence about its origin, not just an example of its usefulness.
Working the answers
- A
The author doesn't argue that sophisticated communication guarantees animal domestication. That would be a different mistake: communication is required, so having it must produce domestication. Here, the conclusion concerns the primary reason language developed. The presence of a requirement in the premises doesn't make every requirement-versus-guarantee answer fit.
- B
'Primarily' doesn't mean 'for exactly one reason,' and the argument doesn't make a rule about every phenomenon. Language could have developed for several reasons while one was the main reason. The problem is the evidence for naming domestication as that main reason, not a claim that everything has a unique cause.
- C
We're not told that language and domestication developed around the same time. The author relies on language's usefulness for cooperation, not on dates. A timing-based causal mistake would require a timing comparison that this argument never supplies.
- D
The premises don't already claim that language developed primarily for domestication. They say domestication needs cooperation and communication, and that language can provide the communication. The conclusion adds an account of language's development. That is an unsupported new step, not a repetition of a premise.
- ECorrect
This captures the usefulness-to-origin jump. Language serves a purpose in domestication, but that doesn't establish that it developed in order to serve that purpose. It could have developed for other communication needs and then been used in this activity. That possibility leaves the premises intact while challenging the conclusion about its primary origin.
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