PrepTest 156, Section 4, Question 6
Anthropologist: During the last ice age, nomadic communities(66 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(22 more words not shown)
- AIt is a(12 more words not shown)
- BIt is a(10 more words not shown)
- CIt is an(9 more words not shown)
- DIt is the(6 more words not shown)
- EIt describes a(7 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
If your community needs at least fifteen people to survive and has only seventeen, losing several hunters could threaten everyone. That helps me understand the anthropologist's concern about hunting big game. A mammoth is a much more dangerous target than a rabbit. The argument isn't claiming that every group had exactly the same number of people. These communities were generally only a little larger than the minimum they needed. The anthropologist uses that small margin, together with the danger of hunting large animals, to argue that most food came from other sources.
Could skilled hunters have kept the risk low enough? Perhaps. That is a possible objection to the argument, but we don't have to settle it to identify the role of the highlighted statement. First locate the point being supported: most food came from sources other than big game. The popular picture of these people as primarily big-game hunters is what that point challenges.
What we’re looking for
Be precise about the sentence we're labeling. It reports a common belief; the anthropologist isn't endorsing that belief. I want an answer saying it introduces the view the argument goes on to dispute.
Working the answers
- A
The fact that people commonly portray the nomads this way doesn't support the claim that most food came from other sources. The support is the danger of big-game hunting and the communities' need to preserve their small populations. This sentence introduces the view being challenged.
- B
Which premise does it clarify? It doesn't explain the required community size or the danger of hunting large animals. It tells us what people commonly believe, setting up the anthropologist's disagreement with that belief.
- C
This places the statement on the wrong side. The common portrayal is the view the anthropologist challenges, not the anthropologist's objection to that view. The risk to community members supplies the reason for challenging it.
- D
The anthropologist's conclusion is that most food must have come from other sources, such as small game and plants. The claim that these people are commonly portrayed as big-game hunters comes before that disagreement and explains what the argument is responding to.
- ECorrect
The statement describes a claim the anthropologist attempts to refute: that big-game hunting was the nomads' primary source of food. The argument responds that this would have endangered too many members of communities that needed nearly everyone to survive.
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