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 Hanin Abu Amara
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#100730
Complete Question Explanation

Weaken. The correct answer choice is (C).

In this stimulus, the author is using the premise that domesticated animals were created by breeding only tame members of that species. The author uses an example of breeding tame wolves to form the species of dog. And then from that premise and example, the author concludes that all animals can be bred for domesticity.

There is a problem with this conclusion. The author is assuming that there are tame members in every species. But we don't know that this is the case. If there isn't a tame member of a species then we can't breed that trait using the same methods used when breeding wolves and as such, we can't domesticate that species. This is a weakness in the argument.

The question stem indicates that this is a weaken question. The task is to select the answer choice that hurts the author's argument. Our prephrase is that some species don't have tame members.

Answer choice (A): This answer choice is a classic shell game. All the correct words are being used but in the incorrect order. Our stimulus was concerned with turning wild animals into domestic ones. This AC is concerned with turning domestic animals into wild ones. This is irrelevant.

Answer choice (B): While wild members may mate more frequently than tame members this AC is irrelevant. The stimulus is discussing humans making the breeding decisions for the species and as such how the animals choose to mate does not have impact on the argument.

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice. because it introduces the idea that some species don't have tame members and as such there aren't members that can be bred into domesticity using the methods the author is attempting to utilize.

Answer choice (D): While tame members might be less fertile than wild members, they may still be bred by humans to achieve more tame members of the species and as such this answer choice does not weaken the argument.

Answer choice (E): This is comparing levels of tameness which is not an issue we're concerned with.
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 lemonade42
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#106594
Hello, I understood why (C) is correct by not using any diagramming, but when I started to diagram the conditional statements, I got confused.
So sentence 2 is: Breeding ---> Domestication
and it also encompasses that Breeding ---> Display tameness
So if we use (C), where then we are using the contrapositive Display tameness ---> Breeding
which would show that like you said, "we can't domesticate that species". Wouldn't that be doing an MR? Because you're using Breeding ---> Domestication?
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 Dana D
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#106799
Hey lemonade,

Some stimuli don't lend themselves to diagramming, and I would say this is one of them. Instead, think in terms of the conclusion and premises of the argument. If it made sense to you without diagramming, there is no need to try and apply that to this question.

If you had to try and diagram the passage, I would do so as

Domesticated animals :arrow: breeding individuals of a species that are sufficiently tame
All animals :arrow: can be bred for domesticity

This still requires you to think about whether that logic actually makes sense and identifying the weakness in that argument. Hope that helps!

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