Logical Reasoning

PT121 · S4 · Q5 The best explanation for Mozart’s

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The best explanation for Mozart’s death involves the recently detected fracture in his skull.

Conclusion

The best explanation for Mozart's death involves the recently detected fracture in his skull.

Evidence

The crack could have torn brain veins, allowing blood to leak. Dried blood damages brain faculties and commonly leads to death (though not immediately). Then the bolstering claim: the fracture shows signs of partial healing.

Evaluate

For the fracture to be the cause of Mozart's death, it had to occur while he was still alive. A skull cracked after death cannot kill anyone. Partial healing is biological evidence the fracture happened during life — bone only heals while a person is alive. The claim about partial healing functions to lock in the timing.

Goal

Find the answer that captures this role: ruling out the possibility that the fracture occurred post-mortem.

5.

The claim that the fracture shows signs of partial healing figures in the argument in which one of the following ways?

  1. It shows that Mozart’s death

    Wrong Role

    The argument never claims Mozart's death could have been avoided. It asks what caused the death and supports the fracture explanation. Partial healing supports the timing of the fracture, not anything about preventability.

    3% picked this

  2. Correct

    It shows that the fracture

    Why this is right

    This is the role precisely. Bone only heals in living tissue. So evidence that the fracture had partially healed shows Mozart was alive when the crack occurred — meaning it happened before death, not after. That timing is critical: only an antemortem fracture could be the cause of death. Partial healing is what makes the cause-of-death claim viable by ruling out the post-mortem alternative.

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

    72% picked this

  3. It shows that the dried

    Wrong Role

    The mechanism (dried blood damaging brain faculties) is supported earlier in the argument by the description of bleeding into the brain. Partial healing does not speak to whether dried blood actually impaired anything — it speaks to when the fracture happened. Wrong role.

    16% picked this

  4. It shows that Mozart’s death

    Wrong Role

    The argument expressly says brain damage from bleeding "commonly, though not immediately" leads to death — the opposite of sudden. Partial healing also independently suggests time passed between the injury and death (since healing takes time). Nothing here is being used to argue death was sudden.

    1% picked this

  5. It suggests that Mozart’s death

    Wrong Role

    The accident hypothesis is mentioned in passing as the likely cause of the crack, but the argument does not use partial healing to support that. Partial healing supports the timing of the fracture, not whether it was accidental versus intentional. Different role.

    8% picked this

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