PT150 S2 Q2 ExplanationAncient humans in eastern North America

Answer choices, explained

1. A

   Correct89% picked this

   the engraving was made during the time when the settlement

   Why this is right

   If you negate this, you get "the engraving was not made during the time when the settlement was occupied". Does that hurt the argument? Sure. The author is moving from "if you engraved it on a bone, then you must have been seeing this thing in your area". If the engraving took place during another time period, then the bone doesn't tell us anything about whether mammoths lived in this area during the time period when the settlement was occupied. Negating this answer makes room for objections like my example of, "what if people lived here 10,000 years ago, but the bone was engraved 15,000 years ago?" In general, on LSAT problems involving archaeological evidence, the authors usually have to assume stuff like "where we found X is where X came from" / "what this area looks like now resembles what it looked like then".

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

   89%
2. B

   Irrelevant: type of bone1% picked this

   the fossil on which the engraving was made was not a

   If we negate this, it would be saying "the engraving was made on a mammoth bone". Would that weaken the argument? No, that would all but prove the author's claim that mammoths were present in that area.

   1%
3. C

   Too Strong: none anywhere4% picked this

   when mammoths disappeared from eastern North America, there were no mammoths left anywhere

   The author doesn't need to assume anything about all of North America being 100% mammoth free. If we negated this and it said that "there was still at least one mammoth somewhere in central or western North America", would it hurt the argument? Not at all. If we were tempted by this answer, we should think more about isolating the Conclusion and the Evidence. This answer is lost within the background claim that isn't even essential to the argument.

   4%
4. D

   Too Strong: unique4% picked this

   the engraving technique employed on the fossil was unique to eastern

   The author doesn't have to think there was anything special about this engraving technique. If a similar technique is also used in western North America, that would change nothing.

   4%
5. E

   Too Strong: no way1% picked this

   there is no scientific way of dating when the engraving of the

   Would it hurt the author's argument if there were a scientific way of dating the engraving? Nope. Dating the engraving and dating the bone could actually help to confirm the author's conclusion.

   1%