#16 - Wood that is waterlogged or desiccated can be preserve

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[kithly]

I picked E, but all the answers confused me. How can we reasonably assume that, in E, "more unpreserved vehicles were made of wood than were made of other ceramic-like materials"? What if there were 100 wooden unpreserved vehicles throughout all of history but 200 stone vehicles no more susceptible to disintegration than ceramic? How can we say there were "more" wooden vehicles, since the wooden vehicles disappeared over time?

[Brook Miscoski]

Kithly,

I agree with you that the correct answer is not fun to choose. However, it is the best choice, which is why you picked it.

My approach is as follows:

Stimulus: Okay, archaeologists look at ceramic models because the full sized vehicles are often decayed.

Question asks me to pick the answer choice that matches the stimulus.

(A) Stimulus implied the individuals were not necessarily the same ("approximately"). Wrong.
(B) Stimulus just said we had some ceramic models, not that there weren't other models that have been lost. Wrong.
(C) Stimulus didn't talk about awareness of craftsmen. Wrong.
(D) Stimulus didn't talk about difficulty finding artifacts once they are preserved. Wrong.
(E) I guess that would have to be true, since if the full sized vehicles were made of things like ceramics, they would have survived, like the ceramic models did. It also goes along with the idea that we have to look at the ceramic models instead of the full sized vehicles. Right.

So you can see that (E) is not a thrilling choice even though I can explain why it works; but on the other hand there are such clear reasons to eliminate the others that you should confidently pick (E) even if it is a little confusing.

4 wrong choices + 1 WTF = choose the WTF.

[jwheeler]

Would another justification of choice E be that if there were more early wheeled vehicles made of ceramic/other materials that don't disintegrate as easily, then it's likely that we would be able to find those & study them instead of relying on the models?

[Adam Tyson]

Exactly right, jwheeler! If there were more vehicles made of things that do not disintegrate than of wood, then the "main evidence" regarding such vehicles would be the surviving vehicles themselves and not the models! The fact that the models constitute the main evidence must mean that we are lacking evidence of the real things. They disintegrated!

Note that this is a "Most Strongly Supported" question, which means our standard of evidence is a bit lower than a full strength Must Be True question. The correct answer is strengthened by the stimulus, even if it is not absolutely required. In these questions, one of the answers gets at least some support from the stimulus, while the other four typically get no support at all. Look at answer E not as something required, but something that seems reasonable to infer based on the information provided. The other answer simply get no support, so it would not be reasonable to infer them based solely on what we read in the stimulus.

[tizwvu34]

I was able to get to answer E) based on eliminating all other choices. In my blind review I am trying to comprehend what the second half of E) boils down to. Is it acceptable to think of "materials no more susceptible to disintegration" as "no weaker than"?

If this is correct, does it make it circular in a sense since wood is more susceptible to disintegration than ceramic? I am just having a hard time nailing down the phrase "no more susceptible to disintegration". Thanks PS!

[James Finch]

Hi tizwvu,

It sounds like you're on the right track, although I'd be careful with the precise language used. "Weaker" is a very broad, I'd use a word closer to "durable" instead, as the idea that the stimulus and answer choice are discussing is the breakdown over time of the wheeled vehicles. If you want to eliminate the double negative, I'd change it to "at least as durable as" the ceramic material.

The main takeaway to this question is that the last sentence in the stimulus is a conclusion, and gives us the inference that we can make: because most evidence comes from the models, not the vehicles themselves, most of the vehicles must have been made of wood rather than something more durable. (E) exactly this, albeit in an excruciatingly obtuse way.

Hope this helps!

[Bmas123]

Hi, I read the previous post about the wrong answers, but I am still having trouble seeing why B is wrong. Is anyone able to explain that? thanks!

[Robert Carroll]

Bmas123,

Ceramic models survived, but we have no idea whether there were other models made of other materials. If they were made of wood, they probably would have disintegrated, just like the wheeled vehicles discussed in the stimulus. The fact that we do have ceramic models doesn't mean that other models didn't exist at one time - we would have no idea.

Robert Carroll