Q1

[joseph.carroll.555]

I had it down to A and B, and while I certainly see why A is correct, I am really confused as to why B is wrong.

We know that the anthropologists have hypothesized that the paintings were intended to provide a means of ensuring food. The author seems to support this hypothesis through statements such as "The images were probably intended to make these animals vulnerable to the weapons of the hunters." and "Other paintings clearly show some animals pregnant, perhaps in an effort to assure plentiful hunting grounds."

Doesn't the use of tentative words such as probably and perhaps indicate that the author is hesitant in his/her agreement?

[noah]

I had it down to A and B, and while I certainly see why A is correct, I am really confused as to why B is wrong.

We know that the anthropologists have hypothesized that the paintings were intended to provide a means of ensuring food. The author seems to support this hypothesis through statements such as "The images were probably intended to make these animals vulnerable to the weapons of the hunters." and "Other paintings clearly show some animals pregnant, perhaps in an effort to assure plentiful hunting grounds."

Doesn't the use of tentative words such as probably and perhaps indicate that the author is hesitant in his/her agreement?

Great question. (What makes it great is your use of text to support your point.)

To start, and for anyone else reading this, in the third paragraph we don't see the author's opinion as clearly as we might want. We read that "the images were probably intended..." and later "an explanation supported by the fact. " We also read that there is evidence supporting the theory about rituals having been performed in front of the paintings. Is it loud and clear? No. But, the author does not write hedging or distancing comments like "The anthropologists support their theory by..." Instead, we see her offer the evidence herself. Thus, we can say that her acceptance of the theory is implied.

(B) is tempting, however "hesitant acceptance" would sound much more like this: "Because of X, the theory does warrant acceptance, though there are several reasons to doubt it." The fact that the hypothesis is discussed with terms like "probably" and "perhaps" suggests that the theory is not 100% proven, but the theory can still be accepted as the best one available. In short, we'd want to see in the passage some discussion of the reasons for hesitation to select this answer.

(C) is too aloof -- the author does not indicate any doubts that would support "noncommittal."

(D) is too negative. Where's the skepticism?

(E) is contradicted.

[Dtodaizzle]

This is the second time where I saw the word "curiosity" is used as one of the answer choices for these type of questions. Whenever an author writes an article, it is natural that one of factors is curiosity. After all, why bother to write it in the first place? This thought led me to a couple of questions that I have.

1.) If the answer choice for C is "implicit curiosity", could we still eliminate it?

2.) If we are not taking into account of answer choice A, would the new answer choice C be a better one than B?

3.) When is "curiosity" used as a correct answer choice in RC? Does the passage have to explicitly express "curiosity", or can it be implicitly expressed?

[ohthatpatrick]

Good questions, quick answer:

1. I think "implicit curiosity" is totally fair, for the reason you said (author's are implicitly curious about any topic they're writing about)

so skip to #3

3. I've never seen 'curiosity' be correct, as far as I can remember, probably because the 'curiosity' part doesn't seem to even need textual support. You would just infer that from the fact that author bothered to write a passage. It's also just too neutral of a noun. I've never seen 'neutrality' be correct on an attitude question (there are tons of neutral passages, but they don't bother to ask attitude questions on those).

2. There's no way to rank to wrong answers against each other: which is worse, the unsupported 'hesitant' or the unsupported 'noncommital'?

I would say that (C) would become the safer of those two answers because a noncommital curiosity would be invisible in the passage. A hesitant agreement would necessitate some actual moment of agreement as well as a moment of reluctance.

But I would caution you against trying to figure out which wrong answer is more right. It seems like that's a completely counterproductive way to train your brain, when your specific RC goal is to figure out what's WRONG with each answer, not what's right about it.

[LukeM22]

Sorry, still not sold on why C is any worse than A. If someone implicitly accepted a hypothesis, how exactly would that look different from being non-committed to it? I get that curiosity is redundant, but I'm failing to see why "noncommittal" is wrong. The author was very neutral and dispassionate here.

[ohthatpatrick]

It's the 2nd paragraph that makes the author clearly "committal"?

The passage has this structure:

i. CURIOUS PHENOMENON (cave paintings exist)
ii. SOME ANTHROs' INTERPRETATION (this was art, and thus it shows that A's had more leisure time than N's)
iii. AUTHOR'S OBJECTIONS TO THAT INTERPRETATION (if it were art, it wouldn't be so hidden in the recesses of a cave)
iv. OTHER ANTHRO's INTERPRETATION (paintings were religiously used to gain power over prey)

Since the author objected to the first but NOT to the second, we get to say implicit acceptance.
Lines 43-57 kinda sound like they're in the author's voice, and they have phrases like
"the images were probably ___ .... an explanation supported by ____ "
"other paintings CLEARLY show ..."
"there is also evidence that ..."

And since the author actually evaluates the 1st interpretation and seems to think it's unlikely, she's more than noncommittal.