Q10

[hyewonkim89]

What makes (C) better than (E)?

Is it because dance forms being variable is out of scope?

Thanks in advance!

[Yangyi.vita]

I believe it's not about just the data collection. The context says "peers" recognize areas that is scientifically rigorous as the legitimate areas to focus on, which means dance does not befit the scentific rigor standard. So C wins.

[ohthatpatrick]

Nice response.

Focus on the context of the whole sentence:
- Dance was NEGLECTED as an area of social research
why?
- because most social scientists want to work in an area of research that was more likely to be recognized by peers as a scientifically rigorous, "legitimate" mode of inquiry.

What's the assumption/inference connecting those two ideas?

Dance is NOT likely to be recognized as a scientifically rigorous, legitimate mode of inquiry.

We just need whatever answer choice gives us the closest paraphrase of that.

(A) 'Misinterpretation' goes beyond what we're looking for.

(B) This is sounding like it's not too hard to obtain reliable data about dance traditions. That sounds more like the opposite of what we want.

(C) Okay, sounds kinda like "dance research is NOT gonna be recognized as a scientifically rigorous, legitimate mode of inquiry".

(D) "too preoccupied" (too busy) isn't a match for what we want.

(E) If true, this strengthens the idea that "dance research is not likely to be good, hard science". But we're not trying to strengthen the idea. We're trying to REITERATE the idea. The whole tidbit about dance forms being too variable across cultures is NOT something we can point to in the passage.

Remember, when question stems say
- suggests
- implies
- inferred
- most likely to agree

the correct answer is a paraphrase of an actual line reference. So we should always be able to justify our answer by pointing at some sentence (or two).

Also, when you're down to 2, in this case (C) vs. (E), ask yourself, "Is there a way in which the test writers are TRYING to make the trap answer appealing?"

(E) re-uses the word 'rigorous' from the passage. Word matching is NOT what most correct answers do. That's what most TRAP answers do. Most correct answers use paraphrases of the actual wording used. (Remember 'ballet' from Q12 in the trap answer vs. 'influenced'/'non-Caribbean' in the correct answer?)

Our correct answer here paraphrases "not scientifically rigorous/legitimate" as "can't be conducted with a high degree of scientific precision".