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- Sun Jan 21, 2007 12:00 am
#24514
Complete Question Explanation
Resolve the Paradox. The correct answer choice is (C)
The stimulus informs us that the growth-rings in a tree indicate annual rainfall and age, and then informs us that archaeologists have used the rings to determine the relative ages of certain tombs, because the tombs were constructed using freshly cut logs and the logs were cut only from the same area.
The explanation for why the archaeologists can be so certain about the relative ages of tombs is somewhat incomplete. First, the number of growth-rings indicate the age of the tree when it is cut, not the date on which it is cut. Second, there is no reason to believe that the relative placements of growth-rings that indicate extreme rainfall deviations would allow archaeologists to determine the relative dates on which trees were cut.
You are asked to take a stab at completing the explanation, so you will need to focus on finding a response that explains how, in this case, you can use the number of rings and the relative placement of certain rings to establish relative tomb dates.
Answer choice (A): The preservation of artifacts itself does not help the method suggested. You are supposed to explain how the tree-ring method works, and this irrelevant choice will not help.
Answer choice (B): The fact that the trees in the Pazyryk Valley have growth patterns distinct from other trees will not help explain how t he Pazyryk trees, once cut, can be relatively compared to each other, so this choice is wrong.
Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice. If each log has that distinctive sequence of twelve years, it is reasonable to make assumptions as to the relative dates that the trees were cut, because the archaeologists could simply use that single twelve-year period as a reference point, and count the annual rings past that period. That may not be foolproof, but it is good support.
Perhaps the use of the word “sequence” is questionable, in that many people associate sequences with patterns and therefore believe that a sequence should be repetitive; however, in this case the other responses are bad enough, and this response uses modifiers such as “distinctive” and “a” to indicate the intended interpretation, which is that out of all a tree’s rings, there will be one such sequence.
Answer choice (D): It is uncertain that the relative ages of the trees when they were cut would indicate the relative dates of tomb construction. For instance, since several trees could be used to construct a single tomb, you could have a few logs that were cut at 90 years and a few that were cut at 450 years, but hopefully you would not conclude that the tomb took 360 years to build.
Answer choice (E): The cultural artifacts would not help establish why the tree-ring method was sufficient to know the relative ages of the tombs. If you use evidence outside of tree-rings, then clearly that does not establish that tree rings were sufficient themselves. Furthermore, this evidence is not even clearly helpful to the general conclusion that the relative dates are accurate. You may have believed that by localizing the ages of the tombs to a century or so, the archaeologists could be certain of their comparisons of the tree-rings. However, you do not have any basis for assuming that there are significant deviations in the annual rings for the purposes of comparison, so this choice is not very convincing support even for a generalized conclusion.
Resolve the Paradox. The correct answer choice is (C)
The stimulus informs us that the growth-rings in a tree indicate annual rainfall and age, and then informs us that archaeologists have used the rings to determine the relative ages of certain tombs, because the tombs were constructed using freshly cut logs and the logs were cut only from the same area.
The explanation for why the archaeologists can be so certain about the relative ages of tombs is somewhat incomplete. First, the number of growth-rings indicate the age of the tree when it is cut, not the date on which it is cut. Second, there is no reason to believe that the relative placements of growth-rings that indicate extreme rainfall deviations would allow archaeologists to determine the relative dates on which trees were cut.
You are asked to take a stab at completing the explanation, so you will need to focus on finding a response that explains how, in this case, you can use the number of rings and the relative placement of certain rings to establish relative tomb dates.
Answer choice (A): The preservation of artifacts itself does not help the method suggested. You are supposed to explain how the tree-ring method works, and this irrelevant choice will not help.
Answer choice (B): The fact that the trees in the Pazyryk Valley have growth patterns distinct from other trees will not help explain how t he Pazyryk trees, once cut, can be relatively compared to each other, so this choice is wrong.
Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice. If each log has that distinctive sequence of twelve years, it is reasonable to make assumptions as to the relative dates that the trees were cut, because the archaeologists could simply use that single twelve-year period as a reference point, and count the annual rings past that period. That may not be foolproof, but it is good support.
Perhaps the use of the word “sequence” is questionable, in that many people associate sequences with patterns and therefore believe that a sequence should be repetitive; however, in this case the other responses are bad enough, and this response uses modifiers such as “distinctive” and “a” to indicate the intended interpretation, which is that out of all a tree’s rings, there will be one such sequence.
Answer choice (D): It is uncertain that the relative ages of the trees when they were cut would indicate the relative dates of tomb construction. For instance, since several trees could be used to construct a single tomb, you could have a few logs that were cut at 90 years and a few that were cut at 450 years, but hopefully you would not conclude that the tomb took 360 years to build.
Answer choice (E): The cultural artifacts would not help establish why the tree-ring method was sufficient to know the relative ages of the tombs. If you use evidence outside of tree-rings, then clearly that does not establish that tree rings were sufficient themselves. Furthermore, this evidence is not even clearly helpful to the general conclusion that the relative dates are accurate. You may have believed that by localizing the ages of the tombs to a century or so, the archaeologists could be certain of their comparisons of the tree-rings. However, you do not have any basis for assuming that there are significant deviations in the annual rings for the purposes of comparison, so this choice is not very convincing support even for a generalized conclusion.
