Self-study
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.
8.
The argument's reasoning is most ██████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ███ ████████
a
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.
b
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.
c
overlooks the impressive ████████████ ██ █████ ████ █████████████
The author’s argument is only about the Mayan civilization. The achievements of other civilizations are irrelevant.
d
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.
e
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.