PT5.S.Q15 - Impossible to find 80-95 yr olds who primarily use left hand

I'm struggling to understand why A is the correct answer on this question. Anyone understand or want to take a stab at it?

Comments

  • SSBM1000SSBM1000 Member
    edited September 2020 614 karma

    Hello,

    A is correct because we are trying to find the answer choice M can't make an argument for with the information they presented now that Q has presented their argument. Since Q says that children back during the period when the people M references would be children were forced to use their right hands and punished for using their left hands, M can't argue that being right-handed confers a survival advantage because they were forced to use that hand by society, instead of it being a genetic or other type of advantage. While it's possible that being right-handed could confer a survival advantage, the fact that the people were forced to use their right hands ruins any argument M could make in favor of that, as Q could just counter with the fact they were forced to use their right hands, and thus M's argument doesn't necessarily follow.

  • jdseidler-1jdseidler-1 Member
    61 karma

    This one isn't really a common question stem, but the goal of the answer choice is to use Q's response to shield M's comments from a conclusion that shouldn't be drawn. So, M says it is almost impossible to find left handed person between 80-95. Q says, yeah, that's because they were forced to be right handed as children. Q's statement prevents us from making the statement that the reason these people are right handed is because being right handed confers a survival benefit, because if they were born left handed it probably doesn't help to be right handed.
    B's wrong because Q may or may not agree with it, Q's statement doesn't prevent us from reaching this conclusion.
    C's wrong because Q may or may not agree with it, we have no idea if it's harmless or not.
    D's wrong because Q probably would agree with it, genetics being how they were born and societal pressure was being forced to switch handedness
    E's wrong because Q would also agree with this one, they were forced to be right handed as a kid and now that they're 90 years old, they're still right handed.

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