Anthropologist: In an experiment

Answer choices

1. A

   No Impact6% picked this

   Apart from the sophistication of their stone tools, there is a great deal of evidence suggesting that Neanderthals

   The author was never claiming that Neanderthals didn't have language. So we can't weaken this argument by saying, "Hey, Neanderthals had language!" The author was just claiming, in a hypothetical world where Neanderthals didn't have language, that they still could have created their sophisticated tools just as easily.

   6%
2. B

   Strengthens, if anything3% picked this

   The students who were taught with verbal explanations were allowed to discuss the toolmaking techniques among themselves, whereas the students who learned

   This answer gives another advantage to the group that had language. They were not only taught using language but they were also free to discuss what they were learning using language. Meanwhile, the other group was taught without language and wasn't allowed to use language to discuss the tools with their fellow group members, and yet they still acquired skills in using the tool just as fast and just as well as the first group. This would only help the author to argue even further than language is not providing benefit to the group that's using it.

   3%
3. C

   Correct82% picked this

   The tools that the undergraduates were taught to make were much simpler and easier to make than most types

   Why this is right

   This de-values the relevance of the study as a way of assessing whether someone can learn a sophisticated Neanderthal tool without using language. The conclusion is about whether language was needed / helpful when it came to creating sophisticated Neanderthal tools. If the tools in the study were much simpler and easier and most Neanderthal tools, then the study wasn't actually testing any of the sophisticated tools that Neanderthals made. Thus, the fact that in the study undergrads could learn these super simple tools without the benefit of language becomes much weaker evidence that they could have learned a sophisticated Neanderthal tool without the benefit of language. I could probably teach you how to use a simple tool like a hammer without language, but it would be much harder to teach you how to use a sophisticated tool like a sewing machine without language.

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

   82%
4. D

   Strengthens4% picked this

   The instructor who taught the group of students who learned by silent example alone was much less proficient at making the stone tools than

   This answer is similar to (B), in its effect. The author is looking at the fact that both groups learned tool usage equally well, regardless of whether language was involved, and concluding "it must be because language isn't needed to learn these tools". An alternate explanation for why the two groups ended up having similar success could have been the opposite of (B) (yes, the teacher couldn't talk, but the students still talked to each other) or it could be the opposite of this answer (the reason the silent group did as well as the talking group is because the silent group had a much better teacher than the talking group had). But this actually rules out that explanation, so it strengthens. Like (B), it's saying that the silent group had yet another obstacle (teacher didn't talk / students couldn't talk amongst themselves / teacher was worse). And yet if the students still learned the tool skills just as well, that helps the author argue that language is not important to learning.

   4%
5. E

   No Impact5% picked this

   The tools created by Neanderthals were much less sophisticated than the tools created by anatomically modern humans who almost certainly possessed language and lived

   This answer compares the sophistication of Neanderthal tools to that of modern humans living at the same time. Old humans who were contemporaneous with the Neanderthals have nothing to do with our conversation. The only way to make them relevant would be an answer like, "The tools created by anatomically modern humans who lived at the same time as the Neanderthals were much less sophisticated than those made by the Neanderthals and those humans could not have created such tools if they had had no language".

   5%