18. Armchair anthropologists of the Victorian Era rarely visited the lands in whose cultures they proclaimed themselves experts, and were as likely as not to call the inhabitants “savages.” By contrast, contemporary anthropologists, who are not taken seriously unless they have lived for a time among the people they study, are likely to use the more enlightened term “indigenous people.”

The author’s assertion about the superiority of contemporary anthropologists rests on which of the following assumptions about the word enlightened?

A. Victorian Era anthropologists often considered themselves enlightened even though they had never lived among the cultures they studied.
B. To be enlightened requires spending time among the people being studied.
C. The goal of contemporary anthropology is to become enlightened.
D. A person who has been enlightened can not, by definition, be called a savage.
E. Anthropologists must be enlightened before they are properly prepared to spend time among the people they study.

I think its A because "indigeneous people" is more enlightened,then not calling them "savages" must be enlightened.


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IMO B is the ans.
The new anthropologists are enlightened by their association with the other culture. They must be knowing enough about the culture so as not to call them "savages", but rather "indigenous people".

I think it's B

IMO B.

Though I marked B,I am not able to eliminate the answers choise. Please help

A The passage does not discuss whether Victorian Era anthropologists considered themselves enlightened.
B Correct. Contemporary anthropologists are considered more enlightened because, unlike Victorian Era anthropologists, they are likely to have lived among the people they study.
C The passage does not make this claim.
D The passage does not address the application of the word enlightened to people being studied.
E The passage actually argues that anthropologists are enlightened because, or after, they spend time among the people they study.

The correct answer is B.

The answer MUST be B. This is a good example of a GMAT CR question, because it follows the basic tenet of CR questions: if you keep your eye on exactly what's being claimed, the answer comes directly out of it.

In this case, the claim in the argument is as follows:
1) Victorian anthropologists did not go countries and called people "savages"
2) Contemporary anthropologists did go, and use the term "indigenous people".
3) The term "indigenous people" is more "enlightened" than the term "savages."

So what's the missing connection? Well, the people who went to the countries use the more enlightened term. There is NO other difference mentioned between the two sets of anthropologists, so the right answer MUST hinge on this difference. B simply makes this connection, clearly and accurately, and must be right. To test it, use the negation test:


If this were true, then the argument would not be true, because neither group would be any more likely than the other to be "enlightened" (or, more accurately, to use a more "enlightened" term).

All the other choices distort the entities in the argument in various ways, usually by moving the term "enlightenment" to the wrong entities in the argument (Victorian anthropologists, "savages," etc.) It is only contemporary anthropologists who are "enlightened."
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Knewton Verbal Developer

B

Easy B!
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