#23 - It has been argued that the immense size of

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[lathlee]

This Method-AP question correct answer c)saus the sufficiency of the evidence = T.rex could only have been a scanvenger, not a hunter

i don't get it. what makes this "T.rex could only have been a scanvenger, not a hunter " as the sufficiency of the evidence ?

[Adam Tyson]

I'm not sure I understand where your confusion lies here, lathlee. The claim in question is something the author is attempting to show is questionable. That is, he is trying to weaken that argument. He does so by calling into question the sufficiency of the evidence, and that evidence is that T. rex is large and slow. The author is saying that being large and slow is not, by itself, sufficient to prove that it was a scavenger rather than a hunter, because it could have hunted animals that were even larger and slower than it was.

As always, start with your prephrase. What role did this claim play? You should come up with something like "it is a claim that, while supported by some evidence, is weakened by additional evidence provided by the author." Or perhaps you might say "it is a claim that the author believes is not fully supported."

Answer A describes a contradiction. Did our author say "that claim and this other claim cannot both be true?" No, he said "that claim doesn't have to be true because of this other claim could be true."

Answer B describes a much stronger response than our author made to the claim in question. He didn't say anything about the opposing claim being "probably false", but only that it was "overly hasty", meaning there was more evidence to be considered before getting to that, or any other, conclusion.

That leaves answer C, our correct answer. The claim is one that the author seeks to show may not be true, because the evidence offered for it may not be enough.

[lathlee]

sorry i was not articulate enough; you read my mind and the curiosity and nailed the explanation part. thank you so much.

[martingreyell]

For some reason I had a hard time choosing between A and C, even after applying the adversarial approach. Is C correct because the author "calling into question the sufficiency of the evidence" is more directly and specifically demonstrated in the stimulus compared to the presence of a logical inconsistency as choice A suggests? But isn't the statement "could only have been a scavenger" showing a logical inconsistency with the authors conclusion as well? Would appreciate some help to avoid getting stuck on two contenders like this in the future. Thanks!

[Brook Miscoski]

Martin,

Reading through the stimulus, we can tell that the claim that t-rex was a scavenger is under attack by the author. So, in general, we are able to eliminate D& E, since it is a conclusion that the author attacks. B falls away quickly because the author says the inference is "hasty," not that it is "probably false." That leaves us with A and C, as you say.

I would focus on the substantive difference between A and C. Choice (A) is about inconsistency, while choice (C) is about additional evidence.

I agree with you that choosing (C) is supported because the author proposes additional evidence about t-rex's prey.

Another reason to eliminate (A) is that the author says it's "hasty" to say that t-rex was a scavenger, not "impossible." So, the author isn't saying that there's an "inconsistency" in the scavenger hypothesis, just that we aren't ready to decide yet.

For future application, I feel you can treat this as the difference between "self-contradiction" and "additional evidence," using the commonly repeated LSAT flaws.

[KwakuS]

Hello,

Is the statement that the T-rex's prey would probably have been slower than the T-rex supposed to be the insufficient evidence in C? That didn't seem like evidence to me, which led me to choose B.

Thanks,
Kwaku

[Adam Tyson]

No, the insufficient evidence is "the immense size of Tyrannosaurus rex would have made it so slow that... it would not have been able to chase down its prey." The author is saying that the claim about its size and speed aren't enough to prove it was a scavenger, because it could perhaps have hunted things that were larger and slower. In other words, "sure, it was big and slow, but that's not proof it didn't hunt."

The evidence you cited is the author's evidence that shows the opposing evidence to be insufficient.