We can learn about the living conditions

Answer choices

1. A

   Unclear Impact27% picked this

   A word meaning “fish” was used by the people who

   To this author, if they had a word for fish, then they had fish in their lives. Does that help us argue that they actually did have exposure the ocean/sea? Not really, since you could easily know about fish by living near a lake or a river, in which fish also live.

   27%
2. B

   Correct55% picked this

   Some languages lack words for prominent elements of the environments of

   Why this is right

   This is weakly worded, so not hugely tempting on a first pass, but it does directly target the assumption the author is making. He thinks, "If the ocean/sea was a prominent element of the environment where these people lived, then they would have a word for sea." But this answer reminds the author that you can't make such an automatic move, since some languages lack words for things that are nonetheless prominent in their environment.

   Skill tested: Weaken · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   55%
3. C

   No Impact2% picked this

   There are no known languages today that lack a word for

   We don't really have any interest in modern languages. If they told us that some modern languages, despite living near the sea, had no word for sea, that would weaken in the same way that the correct answer does. But this is saying everyone has a word for sea, so if anything this helps the author.

   2%
4. D

   Unclear Impact7% picked this

   Proto-Indo-European possesses words for

   To this author, if they had a word for heat, then they had heat in their lives. Does that help us argue that they actually did live in a warm climate? Not really, since you could easily know about heat by standing around the fire, in a cold climate.

   7%
5. E

   Very Weak Impact10% picked this

   The people who spoke Proto-Indo-European were

   This might be tempting because we could say, "Hey, author --- since these people were nomadic, even if they were sometimes in a cold climate and sometimes isolated from ocean or sea, at other times they wouldn't have been." That's not a realistic mental picture of what range of territory a nomadic tribe inhabits. All travel is by foot, so a nomadic tribe that starts in central Montana (a cold climate, isolated from ocean or sea), can wander all their days and easily never make it to Arizona or to the Pacific Ocean. If you picture the range of a nomadic tribe being maybe 100 miles in every direction, that's only an area as big as a Rhode Island. That sort of region could easily exist entirely within a cold climate / entirely in isolation from ocean/sea.

   10%