PT147.S1.Q4 > Analytics

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 Question 26

SECTION 2 · rc

PASSAGE 1

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

PASSAGE 2

Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14

PASSAGE 3

Question 15 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

SECTION 3 · rc

PASSAGE 1

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6

PASSAGE 2

Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13

PASSAGE 3

Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21

PASSAGE 4

Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26 Question 27

SECTION 4 · lr

If a certain kind of alien civilization existed, they would know about humans and have the ability to contact us. We haven’t been contacted, so the civilization doesn’t exist.

The author gives a conditional rule, and then tries to negate the necessary condition (knowledge of us and can contact us) so that she can negate sufficient (existence). This would be acceptable if that was what the author did, but it wasn’t:

The author is, through implication, invoking the absence of contact in an attempt to negate the ability to contact, but those two things are not the same. Phrased differently: Just because the aliens can contact us doesn’t mean they will. We need to know that if they can, they will contact us.

We don’t need scientists to be especially focused on the extraterrestrials described in the stimulus. It has no effect on the argument if they do or not.

We are not discussing civilizations more than 50 light years away from us. We are discussing civilizations that are 50 light years away or closer.

It isn’t necessary that scientists fully understand the alien’s message. It is necessary that, if the aliens were to contact us, we would know they had done so. But (C) is not required for that to happen.

This is our prediction, and it is necessary. If the civilization doesn’t want to communicate with us, then the author’s reasoning for ruling out their existence has crumbled. The aliens could exist without us ever hearing from them.

Too strong. It is necessary that the alien civilization recognizes life on Earth as intelligent, but they do not need to be able to recognize all signs of intelligent life.

Question

91% of people who answer get this correct

This is a slightly challenging question.

CURVE

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

25% 128

138

75% 148

Question Stem Tags

Necessary assumption

Stimulus Tags

Conditional reasoning

Link assumption

Popularity Avg. score

150

151

157

91%

162

154

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PrepTest 147 - Section 1 - Question 4

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