Sickles found at one archaeological

Answer choices

1. A

   Too Weak7% picked this

   Some sickles that have not yet been found at the first site do not

   Too Weak: some Out of Scope: sickles not found We should be immediately wary of this answer because it's one-data point worth of information: there is at least one sickle lurking at this site that doesn't have a scratched blade. Cool, so what? The author didn't need to believe that every sickle at site 1 was scratched. We know that all the ones we've found so far ARE scratched, and the author's hypothesis for why they're scratched is that those sickles (the ones we've found) were used to harvest grain. Since the conclusion only speaks for the sickles found at site 1, this answer about sickles not found is irrelevant.

   7%
2. B

   Correct81% picked this

   The scratches on the blades of the sickles found at the first site resulted from something

   Why this is right

   This does what most correct Weaken answers do, on Explain Curious Fact -- it provides an alternate explanation for the curious fact. The answer doesn't tell us what Alternate Cause led to the scratches, but it assures us that there WAS an alternate cause. It wasn't scratched by harvesting grain.

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

   81%
3. C

   No Impact3% picked this

   Sickles at both sites had ritual uses whether or not those sickles were used

   Since this provides an alternate explanation for the sickles, it might feel like we're possibly suggesting an Alternate Explanation for the scratches on the sickle blades. Maybe it wasn't harvesting grain, it was ritual uses? But if the ritual uses caused scratches, and since the ritual uses also happened at site 2, then the blades at site 2 would have also had scratches. Since we know both sites did the ritual uses, but only site 1 had scratched blades, it's not plausible for us to think that "maybe the blades at site 1 were scratched from the ritual uses, not the grain harvesting."

   3%
4. D

   No Impact8% picked this

   At the second site tools other than sickles were used to

   We can't argue with the fact that sickles were NOT used to harvest grain at site 2, so we really don't care what answer choices have to say about site 2. The only vulnerability for the argument is whether grain was harvested at site 1.

   8%
5. E

   Weaker Impact1% picked this

   The sickles found at the first site were made by the same people who made the sickles found

   Since the author thinks that the sickle blades at site 1 were used to harvest grain but the ones at site 2 weren't, maybe it undermines the plausibility of that belief a little bit to say, "Are you sure? The blades at both sites were made by the same people." But that's a weak objection. The author can say, "Cool, I never said that sickles at the two sites were made by different people. I said they were used for different purposes." And the correct answer body slams the argument by saying, "Yo, those blades were not caused by harvesting grain."

   1%