An ancient Pavonian text describes how an army of one million enemies

I don’t like this question. It didn’t ‘feel’ like a GMAT question. It turns out it probably is an LSAT or 3rd party created one. In any event, I did manage to get it correct, right on the average time everyone else did. Anyway let’s try to break this down.

Reading the passage we are basically told about how an ancient army maybe went to a lake and drank it dry. We are then told about how some archaeologists discovered that all the water-based life was suddenly absent after the alleged incident. We finally hear about how students have linked the two and conclude that the army existed and did what it did.

What questionable technique was used by the students in coming to that conclusion? Frankly, I’m not familiar with this type of terminology. I guess this is similar to an assumption question.

To the answer choices.

An ancient Pavonian text describes how an army of one million enemies of Pavonia stopped to drink at a certain lake and drank the lake dry. Recently, archaeologists discovered that water-based life was suddenly absent just after the event was alleged by the text to have occurred. On the basis of reading the text and an account of the archaeological evidence, some students concluded that the events described really took place.

Which one of the following is a questionable technique used by the students to reach their conclusion?


(A) making a generalization about historical events on the basis of a single instance of that type of event

The students didn't generalize about historical events. They were pretty specific. The army existed, went to the lake, and drank it dry. They say that the events described really took place. Not a generalization. Eliminate

(B) ignoring available, potentially useful counter evidence

Hmmm. You might want to yellow flag this. I’m too unfamiliar with the “questionable technique” term to knock this answer choice off. For all I know the student’s technique may have been QUESTIONABLE since it only took pieces of evidence that supported one view.

(C) rejecting a hypothesis because it is seemingly self-contradictory

This seems like a freebie elimination. There is nothing about a hypothesis being rejected, much less one that it is seemingly self-contradictory.

(D) considering people and locations whose existence cannot be substantiated by modern historians

Freebie elimination. Feels like an out of bounds answer choice. Neither the people nor the location is at issue in this passage. The only issue is whether the events that took place when they did and HOW they did.

(E) taking evidence that a text has correctly described an effect to show that the text has correctly described the cause

I think this question may not have been transcribed correctly. I can’t recall why I chose this fully. It probably wasn't a great reason. But I'm sure some of you can see that it is effectively linking a back-to-front cause-and-effect analogy. --- You see the after effects of something (the dry lake) and assume that the army drank it dry (cause). I guess the answer choice is trying to say that there could be any number of reasons for the lake to become dry. How could you or the student simply assume that it was because the army drank it dry. Maybe a travelling circus drank it dry! Frankly, I don’t like this answer choice. But I guess that the LSAT is about proper lawyer behavior. The idea of quickly linking a piece of evidence with an alleged description of events may be a bit hasty in that world.