Q13 - From an analysis of broken pottery

[Raiderblue17]

Can someone just confirm why I messed this up. We had to undermine the conclusion and I picked C.

I didn't pick A, the correct answer, because I mistook earlier for as earlier in the sense, I got up earlier than You. I guess I should have looked at it as earlier in BC which is counting up? I.E. 1000, 999, 998 etc.

Someone just kinda steer me where i need to go please.

[giladedelman]

Yeah, here "earlier" is the same as "older," as in, taking place at a point further back in time. The exact date (1000 B.C. or whatever) is not really important.

So the argument concludes that the settlement is older than previously thought, because researchers found a piece of building timber that's older than the 1000 year-old pottery and stuff. The big assumption here is that the timber is actually from the same civilization as the pottery.

Answer (A) weakens the argument by attacking this assumption: if the timber was salvaged from an earlier settlement, then it doesn't give us evidence of how old the settlement in question was.

(B) is incorrect because whether the pieces were from several parts has no impact on the argument.

(C) is out because whether the tests are newer or older doesn't tell us anything.

(D) is incorrect because, okay, there is more pottery and statuary, but the question is, does this piece of timber prove that the settlement is older or not?

(E) is incorrect because, if anything, it would strengthen the argument by suggesting that maybe the settlement is older than the pottery appeared at first.

[adamdeskus]

I narrowed the choices down between A and C.

I understand why A is correct; however, E appears that it could weaken the argument because there's a possibility that a more recent test would be more accurate than an older test. Thus, the test that they used for the timber might not have been accurate. I guess this is too much of a reach though (you have to assume too much)?

[giladedelman]

Exactly: you're assuming too much. A more recent test could be more accurate, but it could just as easily be less accurate, or equally accurate.

[AnnaC659]

Because of "earlier settlement" in (A), I thought this answer choice strengthened the conclusion that the settlement (that had broken pottery/statuary) was older than previously thought:

Stimulus: timber/pottery/statuary were all found in one site; timber was found most recently and turns out it is older than the other things so the settlement at this site must have been older than previously thought.

(A): Timber indeed has marks showing it is from an earlier time.


After reading the thread above, I see I should have understood (A) as suggesting that the settlement that had timber and the settlement that had pottery/statuary were two different settlements.

But isn't it possible to misunderstand like I did??