Logical Reasoning

PT155 · S2 · Q7 Thousands of fossils from the long-extinct

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Thousands of fossils from the long-extinct dire wolf have been found in a cluster of natural tar pits in which animals became trapped and were preserved for millennia.

Conclusion

Pups under six months old probably didn't accompany adults as they were hunting or scavenging.

Evidence

We found a ton of dire wolf fossils that got stuck in some tar pits, but none of them were pups under six months old.

Evaluation

Whenever the conclusion has a new term that isn't discussed in the evidence, that new term will usually be in the correct answer.

Here, the new term was "scavenging or hunting". What is the author assuming about scavenging or hunting?

He's explicitly concluding that there would be adults, but wouldn't be pups.

And his evidence was about fossils found in tarpits where there were adults, but not pups.

So he must be assuming that .

Goal

Look for an answer saying that , or an answer ruling out the possibility that these tar pits were closer to home (where the pups would be).

7.

Which one of the following is an assumption required by the argument?

  1. Dire wolf pups under six

    Out of Scope: success

    The author is only trying to prove that the pups didn't hunt or scavenge, not that they shouldn't have. It doesn't hurt the author's argument to say, "the pups would have contributed to the adults' success". The author would be like, "cool, that may be true, but it doesn't look like the pups did hunt or scavenge."

    9% picked this

  2. If a dire wolf pup

    Opposite

    The author is definitely never comparing the ability of a pup vs. an adult to get out of a tar pit. If the author actually believed that pups had an easier time freeing themselves, then THAT could have been the reason why we found adults but not pups trapped in the tar pits. This would actually be an alternate explanation for why there are no pups in the pits, which would weaken the author's argument (that there are no pups because this was a hunting/scavenging expedition that wouldn't have included pups).

    1% picked this

  3. Before the dire wolf became

    Too Strong

    Too Strong: more than any other Out of Scope: other species The author in no way cares where dire wolves rank on the "Top 100 animals who get stuck in tar pits".

    0% picked this

  4. Correct

    The entrapment of dire wolves

    Why this is right

    The only way that the author can go from "we didn't find pups in the pits" to "I guess the pups didn't come on hunting/scavenging" trips is for him to think that "getting trapped in the pits means that you were on a hunting / scavenging trip". The "most frequently occurred" matches with the "probably" in the conclusion.

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

    85% picked this

  5. For the dire wolves that

    Too Strong: favorite location

    It doesn't make any difference to this argument whether the tar pits are a favorite location, a mediocre location, or a despised location. As long as it was a location they sometimes used for scavenging or hunting, the argument can work. The author is assuming "for the dire wolves that lived nearby, the tar pits were near a location for scavenging and hunting."

    5% picked this

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