#3 - When Copernicus changed the way we think about the

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Must Be True. The correct answer choice is (B)

This stimulus provides information regarding historical breakthroughs, offering two examples of those who looked “differently at the information already available.”

Answer choice (A): The point of the stimulus is not that valuable discoveries often happen by chance, but that they happen as a result of thinking differently.

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice, restating the point that important breakthroughs can come as a result of thinking differently.

Answer choice (C): The author does not discuss the relative frequency of the referenced advances, or of the required kind of thinking, so we cannot base this assertion on the information provided by the stimulus.

Answer choice (D): There is no discussion in the stimulus about what leads to more advances, so this answer choice is incorrect.

Answer choice (E): The author does not discuss the types of fields in which major breakthrough are more likely to occur, so this answer choice is not supported by information in the stimulus.

[martinbeslu]

I thought I understood this question until I read the explanation of the wrong answer choices. I answered B but looking at the explanation for why answer D is wrong I don't see how that answer choice is any different. The explanation says "there is no discussion in the stimulus about what leads to more advances, so this answer choice is incorrect." However, the correct answer B says that shifting from earlier modes of thought can result in more advances. In this situation, is that really different than saying shifting from earlier modes of thought LEADS TO more advances?

To me it seems like the reason answer choice D is wrong is because it is saying that understanding is advanced LESS OFTEN by better organization of available information than it is by the accumulation of new information. We have no information in the stimulus to suggest that this is the less frequent method. If anything, the stimulus suggests that history is REPLETE with breakthroughs of this sort.

[Adam Tyson]

Good question, martinbeslu - let me see if I can flesh that explanation out a bit more for you.

First, the stimulus doesn't really talk about MORE anything - just some. Two examples of given where a change in the way someone thought about things led to an advance without needing any new info. There are many such examples, we're told (that's the "replete" part - many, but not necessarily most). That's what we meant in our explanation - that there is no discussion of MORE advances being made one way or the other, just that SOME advances (many, in fact) are made that way.

The other problem with D is that it is an opposite answer. The stimulus doesn't illustrate that new info is more often at the source of advances, but instead that many advances are made WITHOUT such new info. It may be true that most advances are based on new info, and that the examples in the stimulus illustrate the exceptions rather than the majority, but because the stem asks us what the stimulus illustrates we have to focus on what it shows us and not on what other inferences might be made. You're right that D is wrong because of that focus on the opposite situation, but that doesn't make the answer false or make it conflict with the stimulus, because it still could be true. Many doesn't necessarily equal most!

Good eye, keep that up!