Museum curator: Our ancient Egyptian collection includes an earthenwar

The author concludes that the "hippopotamus was a religious object," not a toy.

To reach this conclusion, he/she cites several facts:

• The hippo was found in a tomb
• It had its legs broken off. (Poor hippo!)
• Ancient Egyptians believed that "the dead had to wage eternal war with beasts." (Poor dead people?)
• Finally, "Breaking the legs off a representation of an animal was thought to help a deceased person in this war."

From the above, the author thinks that the hippo was placed in the tomb to aid the dead person in their eternal war, instead of just as a non-religious toy.

The question asks us to find an assumption "required" by the argument. In other words, which answer choice absolutely MUST be true in order for the author to reach his/her conclusion?

From the passage, we know that the ancient Egyptians believed that "the dead" had to fight against beasts. This implies that ALL dead people, including children, had to wage this war. So even if the tomb held a child, it's possible that the hippo was placed there to help the child fight against beasts.

Because the argument holds up regardless of whether the tomb was that of a child, (A) is not an assumption required by the argument.

Eliminate (A).


To conclude that this particular earthenware figure was not a toy, we don't need to know that earthenware figures were NEVER children's toys in ancient Egypt. Maybe kids played with earthenware toys all the time, but this particular hippo was a religious object.

The argument holds up even if OTHER earthenware figures were toys, so we don't need to assume (B).


Someone can "enter" a tomb without disturbing the contents of that tomb. So, perhaps the tomb WAS reentered before the archaeologists opened it, but the hippo was left exactly as it was found.

This wouldn't wreck the author's argument, so (C) is not a required assumption. (C) is out.


Here we go -- we know that "breaking off the legs of an animal was thought to help a deceased person" fight against beasts. Because the hippo's legs were broken, the author concludes that it was a religious object, not a toy.

For this to make any sense at all, we NEED to know that the hippos legs were intentionally broken off. If the legs were just broken through some "natural occurrence" after it was placed in the tomb, then the crippled hippo wasn't intentionally left in the tomb to help the dead person fight beasts.

We absolutely MUST assume (D) for the argument to hold up, so (D) is looking good.


We know two things about how the hippo was found: its legs were broken, and it was upside down.

Only ONE of those things is actually cited as evidence to support the conclusion -- the broken legs have a specific implication, but there's no discussion about what it means for a figure to be upside down.

So, while we DO need to know that the legs were broken intentionally, the fact that the figure was upside down doesn't really impact the chain of logic in the argument.

The author's conclusion holds up whether the figure was originally upside down or rightside up, so we don't need to assume (E).

(D) is the correct answer.

I hope that helps!