PT131.S3.Q8

SECTION 1 · lr

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25

SECTION 2 · lr

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26

SECTION 3 · lr

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25

SECTION 4 · rc

PASSAGE 1
Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8

PASSAGE 2
Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15

PASSAGE 3
Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22

PASSAGE 4
Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26 Question 27

PrepTest 131 - Section 3 - Question 8

Question

Explanation

Analytics

Show analysis

The more modern archaeologists learn about Mayan civilization, the better they understand its intellectual achievements. ███ ████ ████ ████████ ██████████ ████████████ ███ ███████████ ████ ██ █████ ████████████ ███ ███ ██████ ██ ███████ ████ ██ ████ ███ █ ██████ █████ ██ █████████████ ████████████ █████████ ██ ████ ████ ████ ███ ████ ████ ███ ████████ ██ ███ █████ █████████ ███████ ███████ █ ████ ██████ ██ ████████████ ███████████

Summarize Argument

The author concludes that the Mayan people in general had a strong understanding of math. He supports this by pointing out that the writings of their religious scribes showed a strong understanding of math.

Identify and Describe Flaw

This is the cookie-cutter flaw of hasty generalization, where the author draws a broad conclusion from too little evidence or an unrepresentative sample. Here, the author makes the generalization that all Mayans understood math based only on a sample of Mayan religious scribes. But the religious scribes may not be representative of the people in general.

Analysis by EleanorRoberts

Show answer

The argument's reasoning is most ██████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ███ ████████

fails to provide ██ ████████ ██████████ ██ ███ ████ █████████████ ████████████

The author doesn't define “intellectual achievement,” but he doesn’t need to. So (A) does not describe why his argument is vulnerable to criticism.

bases a generalization ██ █ ██████ ████ ██ ██████ ██ ██ ████████████████

The author bases a generalization— that Mayan people in general had a strong understanding of math— based on a sample of Mayan religious scribes that is likely to be unrepresentative.

overlooks the impressive ████████████ ██ █████ ████ █████████████

The author’s argument is only about the Mayan civilization. The achievements of other civilizations are irrelevant.

relies on two █████████ ██████ ██ ███ ████ ████████████

This is the cookie-cutter flaw of equivocation, where the argument uses the same term in different ways. The author doesn’t make this mistake; he uses the term “scientific” clearly. Also, his conclusion is about the Mayans’ mathematical knowledge, not their scientific knowledge.

takes a mere ███████████ ██ ██ ████████ ██ █ ██████ ████████████

This is the cookie-cutter flaw of assuming that correlation proves causation. The author doesn’t make this mistake; his argument doesn’t use causal reasoning at all.

Difficulty

Question

84% of people who answer get this correct

This is a moderately difficult question.

CURVE

Score of students with a 50% chance of getting this right

25% 140

149

75% 157

Analysis

Question Stem Tags

Flaw or descriptive weakening

Stimulus Tags

Part v. whole

Sampling

Answer Popularity

Popularity Avg. score

158

84%

165

152

156

Question history

You don't have any history with this question.. yet!