#13 - In northern Europe, archaeologists have discovered 400,000-year-old

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Strengthen. The correct answer choice is (A).

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[katnyc]

Can someone please go over this answer. I chose answer choice E. I assumed that A was weakening. Im not sure if I misread the stimulus or where I went wrong. I understand where the conclusion is and evidence, just finding the answer threw me off.

[Robert Carroll]

katnyc,

The author thinks that the sharpened wooden poles, flint cutting implements, and remains of horses are evidence that the precursors of Homo sapiens were hunters. We want to strengthen that conclusion.

There's no per se reason why all this evidence would mean the species had to hunt. The flint cutting implements could be knives for carving. The sharpened wooden poles could be walking sticks or stakes for dissuading predators from attacking. The remains of horses could mean just about anything. So any alternative explanation for the presence of these remains (alternative to hunting) would weaken the argument. On the other hand, something that weakened such an alternative explanation would leave the author's explanation untouched, and thus strengthen the author's preferred explanation.

Answer choice (A) weakens an alternative explanation. That answer makes it less likely that the tools were for self-defense or transporting scavenged (not hunted) animals. If that alternative explanation is less likely to be true, the author's explanation is strengthened.

I don't see how answer choice (E) is relevant. We're not talking about Homo sapiens in the stimulus.

Robert Carroll

[lsatstudy2023]

Do you mind explaining why the other answer choices are wrong? Thankssss!!!!

[Adam Tyson]

Sure!

B does nothing to the argument. So what if they used tools like these? This would only help if we knew those tools were probably used for hunting.

C could be seen to weaken the argument. If Homo sapiens evolved 200,000 years earlier than normally assumed, then it could be that these poles and implements could have belonged to them, rather than to their precursors.

D does nothing. So what if they developed lots of different behaviors? Unless one of those behaviors was hunting, that doesn't give us any additional reason to believe they were hunters. We should not assume that hunting was one of those behaviors, because we should not be doing anything to help the answers.

E does nothing, because it's about Homo sapiens, and we're supposed to be strengthening an argument about the people that came before Homo sapiens.

[TootyFrooty]

Sure!

B does nothing to the argument. So what if they used tools like these? This would only help if we knew those tools were probably used for hunting.

C could be seen to weaken the argument. If Homo sapiens evolved 200,000 years earlier than normally assumed, then it could be that these poles and implements could have belonged to them, rather than to their precursors.

D does nothing. So what if they developed lots of different behaviors? Unless one of those behaviors was hunting, that doesn't give us any additional reason to believe they were hunters. We should not assume that hunting was one of those behaviors, because we should not be doing anything to help the answers.

E does nothing, because it's about Homo sapiens, and we're supposed to be strengthening an argument about the people that came before Homo sapiens.

I'm not really getting it. Doesn't A say that they didn't use tools for hunting? and stimulus says they did? I chose E also.

but I am having a hard time seeing why A is it. could you please clarify? thanks

[Dana D]

Hey Tooty,

In this question we're trying to strengthen the argument, so we need to look at the conclusion of that argument, which is that this discovery of sharpened wooden poles and flint cutting tools disproves the belief that the humanlike precursors of Homo sapiens did not hunt. The implication there is that these tools were used for hunting and because of that, we can disprove the belief.

The moment you see a cause and effect argument, you should recall all the ways we can easily weaken that relationship. For example, showing the effect occurred without the cause, showing there is an alternative cause for the effect, etc. In a strengthening question like this one, we want to find an answer choice that would eliminate one of these potential weaknesses in the argument.

Answer choice (A) does just that - the argument is implying that the precursors to Homo sapiens were using these tools to hunt, and therefore because of that, we can disprove the belief that this group did not hunt (that's the effect). If precursors to Homo sapiens were using these tools for self-defense or for another non-hunting reason, then the '"cause" which allows us to determine the "effect" is eliminated - we can no longer say for certain that these precursors were hunters because they might have only used these tools for self-defense, not hunting.

By focusing on the conclusion of the argument, we can immediately eliminate any answer choices that are not talking about the precursors of Homo sapiens, because that is not a population we're discussing here. That lets us know Answer Choice (E) is incorrect- whatever the earliest Homo sapiens did is irrelevant, we are focusing on the human like people that came before this group.