Archaeologists working in the Andes Mountains recently excavated a bur

The conclusion is that "the ancient Andeans may have built the temple as a religious representation of the fox." How does the author arrive at that conclusion?

• Archaeologists recently excavated a buried 4,000-year-old temple in the Andes Mountains.
• The temple contains "structures that align with a stone carving on a distant hill to indicate the direction of the rising sun at the summer solstice." - Don't worry if you don't understand the meaning of "solstice." Even without knowing the definition, we can infer that the author is referring to some specific time of the year. What's important is that the temple-makers were apparently aware of the sun's position at that specific time when they built those structures.
• "Alignments in the temple were also found to point toward the position, at the summer solstice, of a constellation known in Andean culture as the Fox." - If the temple-makers constructed some structures related to the position of the sun at the summer solstice, then it would make sense that other structures in the temple are related to the summer solstice. Now we have some other structures pointing to the position of the Fox constellation at the summer solstice. This is evidence (not proof) that the temple-makers designed these structures with the Fox constellation's position in mind.
• "Local mythology represents the fox as teaching people how to cultivate and irrigate plants." - The fox was obviously an importantly animal to the people of that culture.

So we have evidence that the temple-makers took the summer-solstice position of celestial bodies into account when designing the temple. Some temple structures point towards the position of the Fox constellation, and the fox was an important animal to those people. This suggests that "the ancient Andeans may have built the temple as a religious representation of the fox."

Notice that the conclusion contains the word may. The author is not trying to PROVE that the temple was built as a religious representation of the fox. The author is simply arguing that, based on the evidence cited in the passage, this may have been the case.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument is based?


The conclusion is based on the finding that the temple has alignments pointing towards the position, at the summer solstice, of a constellation.

But this finding is based on the CURRENT alignments. The temple was built 4,000 years ago. What if the constellation has shifted over the course of the last 4,000 years? In that case, the alignment found by the archaeologists would be different than the alignment that existed when the Andeans built the temple. Thus, we would not be able to use the CURRENT alignment to make conclusions about the intentions of the Andeans 4,000 years ago.

Without this assumption, the evidence is clearly undermined, so hang on to (A).


This may or may not be true, but it is not a required assumption. The author argues that the temple was built to represent the fox. The author is not trying to argue that the temple served a specific agricultural function. Eliminate (B).


Sure, it is possible that looters moved some of the structures around, but that doesn't make this a required assumption. Even if looters had entered the temple and removed some objects, the structures referred to in the passage could still have their same positions. Eliminate (C).


If the temple structures point to no other constellations besides the Fox constellation, then it is reasonable to conclude that the temple may have been built to represent the fox. However, if the temple pointed to multiple constellations, then it is less likely that the temple was built to represent the fox in particular. In fact, (D) seems to suggest that the temple-makers were more concerned with agriculture in general than with the fox.

So (D) might weaken the argument. Regardless, it is certainly not a required assumption. Eliminate (D).