Summary
Scientists studying a large colony of macaques found that the babies imitated some of the scientists' actions. They mimicked the scientists when they stuck their tongues out and licked their lips, but they did nothing when they opened or closed their mouths or made hand signs. However, only sticking out the tongue and lip-smacking are used by adult macaques when interacting with their babies.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
Baby macaques mimic the actions of adult macaques
A
Baby macaques under a week old are natural mimics of whatever they see.
This is antisupported. The baby macaques only mimicked the actions that older macaques performed.
B
Baby macaques under a week old cannot imitate hand gestures because they do not yet control the necessary muscles.
This is far too specific to support. Although the baby macaques did not perform hand gestures, the stimulus did not explain why.
C
Adult macaques use lip smacking and sticking out the tongue to entertain infant macaques.
This is too specific to support. The stimulus does not say *why* the adults stick out their tongues or smack their lips.
D
Baby macaques under a week old mistake the scientists interacting with them for adult macaques.
This is too specific to support. While the baby macaques mimic the scientist, the stimulus gives no indication that they mistake them for adult macaques. You need to make some assumptions for this to be right.
E
Baby macaques under a week old only imitate human gestures also used by adult macaques.
The baby macaques only mimicked the scientists when they stuck on their tongues or smacked their lips, actions used by adult macaques. Thus, this is strongly supported.
Summarize Argument
Some people conclude that body size influences mating decisions throughout all societies. This conclusion is based on self-reports of university-age students and on analyses of personal ads for dating partners in newspapers.
Identify and Describe Flaw
The argument is based on a sample that might be unrepresentative. The preferences of university-age students and people who resort to personal ads for dating partners are probably not the same as the preferences of most other people in society.
A
concludes that one kind of event causes another kind of event without ruling out the possibility that both kinds of events are the result of a third kind of event
The conclusion does not assert that one event causes another kind of event. The conclusion concerns a feature (body size) that allegedly plays a role in mating decisions. Body size is not an event. Also, the premise doesn’t present a correlation between two events.
B
bases a conclusion on a sample that may be unrepresentative of the population about which the conclusion is drawn
The conclusion, about “all societies,” is based on reports from university-age students and analyses of personal ads in newspapers. There’s no reason to think these students and people who place personal ads are similar in their preferences to people generally in all societies.
C
concludes that an effect has only one cause in the face of evidence that the effect has multiple causes
The evidence does not suggest that there are multiple factors that play a role in mating decisions. The conclusion also does not assert that body size is the only influence on mating decisions.
D
uses a claim that applies only to entire societies to draw a conclusion about individual persons
The conclusion is not about individual persons. And the evidence does not apply to “entire societies.” The evidence concerns reports from university-age students and analyses of personal ads in newspapers.
E
draws a universal conclusion on the basis of a very small number of individual cases
We don’t know that there were only a “very small number” of individual cases. The stimulus doesn’t tell us how many self-reports or personal ads the conclusion is based on.
"Surprising" Phenomenon
How can the government’s efforts to remove counterfeit bills from circulation be extremely successful while counterfeiters are easily passing counterfeit bills to merchants and banks?
Objective
The right answer will explain how successful government removal of counterfeit bills from circulation does not necessarily (and, in this case, largely does not) preclude counterfeiters from passing their bills to merchants and banks.
A
Government information campaigns that teach merchants and bank tellers how to detect counterfeit bills are more effective than ever.
This does the opposite of what we need. If counterfeit detection campaigns are more effective than ever, we would expect it to be more difficult for counterfeiters to pass their bills to banks and merchants.
B
Governments are continually developing new currency designs with features that are difficult for criminals to counterfeit.
This does the opposite of what we need. New and complex currency designs would likely make it harder for counterfeiters to pass their bills off as real, but we know that they’re having an easy time doing so. We want to know how.
C
Counterfeiters are generally unaware that the percentage of fake bills in circulation is the lowest it has ever been.
This doesn’t matter to us. Whether or not counterfeiters are aware of the percentage of fake bills in circulation, they are passing off their bills easily. We want to know how.
D
Government success in removing counterfeit bills from circulation has caused merchants and bank tellers to become lax in checking for counterfeit bills.
This gives an explanation of how counterfeiters are able to pass off their bills while government counterfeit bill removal programs are successful: merchants and bank tellers, calmed by the government’s success, are being less careful with the bills they accept.
E
Governments are spending larger and larger sums of money in their efforts to remove counterfeit bills from circulation.
This doesn’t matter to us. Increased government spending might contribute to the success of the removal project, but we don’t care why the project is successful. That doesn’t help us understand how counterfeiters are easily passing their bills to merchants and banks.