- Wed Nov 22, 2023 7:03 pm
#104170
Hi Canada101!
This question stem asks about dowsers' skeptics. The best place to go for the views of the skeptics is the second paragraph, which articulates a handful of reasons why the skeptics offer against dowsing.
Answer choice (D) corresponds to the final reason given: "Finally, skeptics note, dowsing to locate groundwater is largely confined to areas where groundwater is expected to be ubiquitous, making it statistically unlikely that a dowsed well will be completely dry" (lines 27-31). Similarly, in (D) people claim to be good at fishing when in actuality the lakes in the area are so full of fish that it would be difficult not to pick a good spot.
If we abstract answer choice (C), it is saying that some people appear innately good at activity X, but this really belies years of intense practice. So we'd want something in the passage that effectively is the skeptics saying, dowsers who appear proficient have actually had years of practice. That isn't one of the reasons, however, raised by the skeptics in the second paragraph.
