Q18 - Anthropologists have long debated whether

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Role/Function

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: If we define 'culture' as 'the sum of the customs practiced by that culture', then in at least a trivial way the customs of a culture preserve the culture.

Evidence: Under that definition, if a culture abandoned a certain custom, it would change 'the sum of the customs practiced by that culture', and hence that culture would no longer exist.

Answer Anticipation:
Good thing we don't need to understand the argument to get a Role/Function question correct. This is a brutal read.

The "because" is a classic Premise trigger word (FABS: for, after all, because, since), so we know the other half of that sentence is a Conclusion. We know that the 2nd half of the last sentence supports the 1st half of the last sentence.

Correct Answer:
C

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Nope, the 1st half of the last sentence is the conclusion.

(B) It's not a definition of a technical term. It's support for the idea that a certain definition would have a certain logical implication.

(C) Sure, this says Premise. Is the conclusion conditional? Yeah, it starts with "If". Okay.

(D) This says Premise but the Conclusion it describes does not match the 1st half of the last sentence.

(E) It is not ascribed to the anthrpologists. This is the author talking. It's her premise.

Takeaway/Pattern: Despite the fact that we don't need to understand this argument well in order to know that the last sentence gives us "Conclusion, because Premise", I imagine some students are going to still be trying to process the meaning.

Pretend that Culture X had customs A, B, C, D, and E.

Some people ask, "do these five customs function to keep Culture X alive? In fact, do the customs of all cultures function to preserve the culture they're in?"

The author is like, well there's one technical sense in which you could say yes:
If you define "culture" as "the totality of all the customs they practice",
then Culture X = A, B, C, D, and E.

If Culture X stopped doing custom E, then it would only be practicing A, B, C, and D, which means that Culture X would no longer be Culture X. Abandoning custom E "destroyed" the identity of Culture X.

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