#7 - Thousands of fossils from the long-extinct dire wolf

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Assumption, CE. The correct answer choice is (D).

The premises establish that dire wolf fossils found in tar pits were exclusively from dire wolves older than 6 months. The author then concludes that younger pups do not accompany the older ones while hunting and scavenging. The concept of "scavenging or hunting" is a completely new idea that crops up in the conclusion, not mentioned or implied anywhere in the premises, and so it should stand out to the reader as a rogue element that must be addressed in the correct answer in order to close the gap in the argument. The author must have assumed that the wolves fossilized in the tar pits were engaged in scavenging and/or hunting, and that is what you should prephrase before looking at any answer choices.

Answer choice (A): Whether pups might have been helpful is not relevant to the argument, and does nothing to connect the tar pit fossils to the idea of scavenging or hunting.

Answer choice (B): How easily a pup might have freed itself is also irrelevant, and in fact this answer weakens the argument by proposing an alternate cause for the absence of fossils from pups in the tar pits. Also, note that this answer does nothing to close the gap in the argument because it fails to discuss "scavenging or hunting".

Answer choice (C): The argument requires no assumptions about the relative numbers or percentages of fossils from different species found in the tar pits. Like answer B, this answer also does nothing to deal with the rogue element of "scavenging or hunting".

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice. A good match for our prephrase, this answer is the only one that closes the gap between the fossils found in the tar pits and the idea of "scavenging or hunting". The negation of this answer, that dire wolves did not typically get trapped while scavenging or hunting, would ruin the argument, because there would no longer be any reason to believe that young pups did not accompany the older ones during those activities.

Answer choice (E): While this answer does connect the tar pits to scavenging or hunting, it is much too strong to be a required assumption. This answer would strengthen the argument, but even if the tar pits were not a favorite location for scavenging and hunting, the argument would still stand up. The tar pits could be a last resort for scavenging and hunting, rather than a favorite location, and the evidence could still support the claim about the youngest pups.

[Legallyconfused]

Hi there,

I totally understand why the correct answer is D, however, is there another assumption also made about the pups? Just because the pups fossils weren't there, doesn't mean they didn't accompany the adults. Right? I know the "scavenging and hunting" is something random introduced and that is why we need to close that gap, but for some reason when I was pre-phrasing what I thought the answer could be, I couldn't let go of the idea that just because their fossils weren't there doesn't mean they weren't there.

Thanks in advance!

[Adam Tyson]

Absolutely right, Not-So-Confused! The author also had to assume that if the pups accompanied the adults while hunting and scavenging, we would have found some pup fossils in the tar pits! Many arguments entail multiple assumptions, and we don't always prephrase the one that the authors give us as the correct answer, so when we don't find our prephrase among the answers we need to consider resetting, coming up with another one, maybe widening our scope. And of course, for Assumption questions, we have our old friend the Negation TechniqueTM to help us out.

Good work!

[ashpine17]

Is this a supporter or defender type necessary assumption?

[Poonam Agrawal]

Hi ashpine!

This is a Supporter assumption. Supporter assumptions work by connecting new/rogue information in the argument, thereby closing any gaps or holes. As explained above, the rogue information in this stimulus is the concept of scavenging/hunting. Because answer choice (E) connects this rogue information to the argument, it serves as a Supporter assumption.

In contrast, Defender assumptions protect the argument by eliminating statements that would undermine the conclusion. They "defend" the argument by showing that one possible avenue of attack has been removed.

I hope this helps!

[1shigami]

Complete Question Explanation

Assumption, CE. The correct answer choice is (D).

The premises establish that dire wolf fossils found in tar pits were exclusively from dire wolves older than 6 months. The author then concludes that younger pups do not accompany the older ones while hunting and scavenging. The concept of "scavenging or hunting" is a completely new idea that crops up in the conclusion, not mentioned or implied anywhere in the premises, and so it should stand out to the reader as a rogue element that must be addressed in the correct answer in order to close the gap in the argument. The author must have assumed that the wolves fossilized in the tar pits were engaged in scavenging and/or hunting, and that is what you should prephrase before looking at any answer choices.

Answer choice (A): Whether pups might have been helpful is not relevant to the argument, and does nothing to connect the tar pit fossils to the idea of scavenging or hunting.

Answer choice (B): How easily a pup might have freed itself is also irrelevant, and in fact this answer weakens the argument by proposing an alternate cause for the absence of fossils from pups in the tar pits. Also, note that this answer does nothing to close the gap in the argument because it fails to discuss "scavenging or hunting".

Answer choice (C): The argument requires no assumptions about the relative numbers or percentages of fossils from different species found in the tar pits. Like answer B, this answer also does nothing to deal with the rogue element of "scavenging or hunting".

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice. A good match for our prephrase, this answer is the only one that closes the gap between the fossils found in the tar pits and the idea of "scavenging or hunting". The negation of this answer, that dire wolves did not typically get trapped while scavenging or hunting, would ruin the argument, because there would no longer be any reason to believe that young pups did not accompany the older ones during those activities.

Answer choice (E): While this answer does connect the tar pits to scavenging or hunting, it is much too strong to be a required assumption. This answer would strengthen the argument, but even if the tar pits were not a favorite location for scavenging and hunting, the argument would still stand up. The tar pits could be a last resort for scavenging and hunting, rather than a favorite location, and the evidence could still support the claim about the youngest pups.

Hi, Could you please explain why the negation of the answer choice D is that the dire wolves didn't typically get trapped while scavenging or hunting. Doesn't that mean that your paraphrase for answer choice D is that dire wolves typically(more than 50% of the chance) get trapped while scavenging or hunting while it's saying that Scavenging or hunting most frequently lead to entrapment (not more than 50% of the chance just more often than any other causes).
Am I wrong? Please help.
Thank you very much.

[atierney]

Before I answer this, just to be clear, it's not necessary to "negate" this answer choice, but it can be useful for explanatory purposes. I simply would advise that if any method is not helpful toward selecting the correct answer, then you certainly should not use it in your answering this question. In terms of D, the point is that if the pups did accompany their parents hunting, then it's likely that you find them trapped in the tar pits along with their parents, because, and this is what D provides, the parents were frequently trapped in the tar pits when hunting. It's all a matter of frequency, i.e. how often the parents got trapped when hunting and how often the pups accompanied the parents. But regardless, D definitely adds to this argument in the way described, it makes the conclusion more likely, and provides a necessary assumption (the frequency of being trapped while hunting/scavenging) upon which the argument relies.

Let me know if you have further questions on this.

[djokly]

Here are my reasons for why D is a bad answer.

- the term "most frequently" doesn't mean "in the majority of cases." It just means out of all the activities that the wolves engaged in while getting stuck in the tar pits, no other activity was more common than hunting and scavenging.
- Therefore, answer choice D isn't required. The required assumption is that the wolves hunted or scavenged near tar pits frequently enough to make it probable that six month old wolves would have gotten trapped there if they followed adults on these trips. In no way is it required that the most common activity wolves engaged in while becoming trapped be hunting or scavenging. it might be the case that hunting and scavenging is 10th on the list of activities that could potentially get the wolves trapped. The argument would still work if they still got trapped frequently enough to make it probable that we would find fossils of baby wolves given that they followed their parents on trips. (This also disproves the negation technique)
- This is also the reason why E is wrong. However, E seems to have a greater chance of being right bc it says "a favorite" location rather than "the favorite," thereby not committing the error committed by D to such an extreme degree.

I would appreciate it if any of you can share your thoughts on what I said above.

Thanks.

[Jeff Wren]

Hi djokly,

I agree that Answer D as it's written doesn't technically need to be assumed for the reasons that you stated.

Every so often, the test makers do make a mistake, and this answer could have been worded better. (By the way, if you ever happen to come across a question on an older test that states "Item has been removed from scoring," that was a situation were an error in the question required it to be removed altogether.)

However, while your assumption that "wolves hunted or scavenged near tar pits frequently enough to make it probable that six month old wolves would have gotten trapped there if they followed adults on these trips," is more accurate, this would also require the additional assumption that any other activities that the wolves engaged in near the tar pits frequently also did not involve six month old wolves (otherwise there would presumably have been bones of the six month olds) or provide some other explanation for why the bones of the six month olds weren't found. (To be clear, this doesn't mean it's wrong, it just complicates the argument a bit.)

Answer E is wrong for the reason that you mentioned.

One point to distinguish Answer D from Answer E is that Answer D specifically addresses the entrapment of the wolves in the tar pit, which is particularly relevant. Otherwise, the wolves could have scavenged and hunted near the tar pits (even with their pups) but not have been entrapped, and the entrapments took place during an entirely different activity (like mating, for example).

Here, Answer D links the entrapments to the activities of scavenging and hunting which is what we want to do, although the exact wording is not as precise/accurate as it should be.

[Corgi2018]

I've been practicing the negation technique and I think it got me messed up here. Can you correct my negations?

D - Entrapment didn't happen most frequently when scavenging or hunting. This means that pups may have joined but we don't know enough. (not necessarily destroying the argument but still negates it)

E - Local tar pits were NOT a favorite location for scavenging and hunting. That means that the scavenging and hunting happens most likely somewhere else. Which means pups definitely could have joined. This feels like this blows up the argument more than D.

What am I missing with this technique?