PrepTest 158, Section 2, Question 3
Bovine remains found in a certain region of(64 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(8 more words not shown)
- AUnless they are(20 more words not shown)
- BDomesticating animals is(20 more words not shown)
- CWith the help(14 more words not shown)
- DNo human culture(10 more words not shown)
- EDomesticated animals of(16 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
The bovines were in a dry region where no other large mammals lived. That makes me wonder how they got water.
The author tells us that any natural water available to the bovines would have attracted other large mammals. Since those animals weren't there, the author rules out natural water. Human care starts to sound like a plausible explanation: perhaps people supplied water to animals they had domesticated.
Still, are the bones enough to establish that story? What if people hunted the animals elsewhere and brought their bones into the region? Then the remains wouldn't show that living bovines were being kept there. That's one possible objection to investigate.
Another thought would be that other mammals lived there but left no remains. We can't use that objection, though. The passage doesn't merely say that no other remains were found; it says there were no other large mammals. We have to work with the fact we're given.
What we’re looking for
We're asked for something the argument depends on. Our bones objection suggests one possible missing link, but the choices might expose another. The right answer must be something the reasoning needs, not simply another statement we can prove from the premises.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
This identifies a more basic assumption than the one I predicted. The author needs the lack of natural water to count against the animals having lived there undomesticated. If wild bovines could readily live in this region despite that lack, why infer human care from their presence?
A supplies that connection: without domestication, bovines would be unlikely to exist where they had no natural water available. The idea may seem obvious, but the argument hasn't stated it. An unstated assumption can be ordinary and still do essential work.
- B
We don't need a rule about which practices a society must adopt first when moving toward agriculture. The argument concerns whether these particular animals were domesticated and whether these people relied exclusively on hunting and gathering. It doesn't reconstruct a required sequence of social development.
- C
Perhaps humans could also have helped donkeys or other large mammals live there. Perhaps not. The argument needs an explanation for the bovines that were present; it doesn't require humans to have been able to support other kinds of animals too.
- D
Why couldn't people grow or raise some food and also hunt and gather? The conclusion says they were no longer exclusively hunter-gatherers. That leaves room for a mixture of food sources. A rule forbidding every culture from combining them is unnecessary.
- E
The question is how the bovines obtained water, not whether domestication reduced their water needs. People could supply domesticated animals with just as much water as comparable wild animals required. The argument doesn't depend on this comparison.
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