The conclusion is that drought reduces agricultural productivity, thereby causing collapse of society. The weakening statement should attack the link between drought and collapse of society. However option B links information from stalactites and drought - it does not address the link between drought and collapse. Hence B is not a weakening statement.

A very beautiful and clever question.
Weakener and causal effects both are merged to make this absolutely gorgeous question

If you read the argument carefully and see its conclusion you will see :-
(1) Society's downfall is correlated to the lack of agricultural resources" ;
(2)Draught is mentioned just as a factor that generally brings the above mentioned lack of resources.
(3)Stalactites is a red herring to confuse test taker and make him read extraneous useless information.

SO in essence it is lack of agricultural productivity that causes society's downfall.
A weakener will suggest that lack of agricultural productivity does not causes downfall

Option D is telling us that when society fell it has ample agricultural products , therefore society's fall cannot be attributed to the lack of agricultural resources.
D. Most of the societies that collapsed during droughts maintained large stockpiles of food and water at the time of their collapse.

THE REASON FOR DOWNFALL IS SOMETHING ELSE AS SHOWN BY OPTION D. IT WEAKENS THE ARGUMENT. THUS D IS THE CORRECT WEAKENER

D IS THE ANSWER
_________________

Conclusion: Drought reduced agricultural produce --> Resources were unavailable to handle threats and stresses.

Possible Weakener: 1) Agricultural produce was not reduced. Resources were available.

A. Many droughts indicated in the cross-sections of stalactites do not correspond with the collapse of a society in that area. - Incorrect - Few droughts may have still indicated a collapse of society and scientists may have derived their conclusion based on them. Also, the option attacks the premise rather than the conclusion.

B. Information from the cross-sections of stalactites alone cannot reveal the level of agricultural output in an area at a particular time. - Incorrect - Again this option attacks the premise and the facts stated.

C. Most of the societies that collapsed during droughts did so when internal power struggles coincided with military raids from neighboring societies. - Incorrect - Irrelevant

D. Most of the societies that collapsed during droughts maintained large stockpiles of food and water at the time of their collapse. - Correct - Agricultural produce was available during drought.

E. Information from stalactites also suggests that the collapse of some societies coincided with periods of abnormally high rainfall. - Incorrect - Out of context.

Answer: D

I was very torn between B and D. Can you please explain why it is not B? I understand this premise attacks the facts stated; however, his hypothesis is founded on that premise and thus the hypothesis is very weak if it is founded on a premise that you cannot found a premise on (per choice B; all the support for his hypothesis is gone in an instant with B)...

To me, D you *must* assume (code red never to do on CR) that there isn't food left over because the dictators/leaders etc. kept it all to themselves. Thus, their society collapsed around them. Or some other plausible explanation. The hypothesis is based on a drought weakening agricultural output. B says, objectively (no possible fringe scenario I can think of), that using XSection alone is insufficient to draw any conclusion about agricultural output.

Thank you.

Scientist: Cross-sections of stalactites - calcite formations deposited on cave ceilings by seeping water - can reveal annual variations in rainfall in particular areas over hundreds and thousands of years. We often found that when-according to these cross-sections-drought occurred in a particular area, it coincided with the collapse of an ancient society in that area. I hypothesize that drought reduced agricultural productivity in these areas, thereby leaving these societies without the resources needed to handle internal stresses and external threats.

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the support for the scientist's hypothesis?

A. Many droughts indicated in the cross-sections of stalactites do not correspond with the collapse of a society in that area.

B. Information from the cross-sections of stalactites alone cannot reveal the level of agricultural output in an area at a particular time.

C. Most of the societies that collapsed during droughts did so when internal power struggles coincided with military raids from neighboring societies.

D. Most of the societies that collapsed during droughts maintained large stockpiles of food and water at the time of their collapse.

E. Information from stalactites also suggests that the collapse of some societies coincided with periods of abnormally high rainfall.


Can someone please explain why E) is wrong
in the mock test, i was confused between E and D. Finally i marked D

Is E wrong because it talks about the collapse of some societies which coincided with periods of high rainfall, the earlier discoveries need not talk about the same socities.
Different stalactities could indicate different eras and diff rainfall estimates ?
_________________

You can think it like this...Abnormally high rainfall might also contribute to reduced productivity...So E is wrong

Vyshak,

Option B is not attacking any fact. "I hipothesize that drought reduced agricultural productivity..." is not a fact. It is rather an inference that the author makes based on the fact that there was a drought. The author then draws a conclusion based on this inference, which plays the role of a premise in his hypothesis/argument.

We can weaken the author's hypothesis by either attacking his premise or his conclusion. Option B weakens his premise, while option D weakens his conclusion.

Can anyone please explain the reason why we should discard option B?

The OA is correct and explanations provided in the thread appear sufficient. If there are any specific questions, please post them here and then click again on the "Request Expert Reply" button - users are requested not to click the button without posting their queries.

premises-
cross section of calcium tells anual variation in rainfall
according to these cross section drought area- it coincided with the collapse of the society

hypothesis- drought reduced agricultural productivity THEREBY leaving these societies without the resources to handle


PREMISES are facts and true, we can't doubt on it, it is a causal passage - basically saying that drought left the societies without resources

it is assuming that there is no alternative resources for the societies to survive - option D tells that CAUSE( drought then reduced agriculture) happened but the RESULT ( societies without resources ) didn't happen as societies had enough stock or backup of water and food

choice B problem is that we can't doubt what is mentioned as a fact in the premise

A. Many droughts indicated in the cross-sections of stalactites do not correspond with the collapse of a society in that area.
It is ,"often" in the passage, so the argument doesn't exclude other potential causes.
B. Information from the cross-sections of stalactites alone cannot reveal the level of agricultural output in an area at a particular time.
Hypothesis is about adequate availability of goods to sustain society well-being.
C. Most of the societies that collapsed during droughts did so when internal power struggles coincided with military raids from neighboring societies.
Strengthen.
D. Most of the societies that collapsed during droughts maintained large stockpiles of food and water at the time of their collapse.
This statement doesn't go in line with scientists' hypothesis as despite the availability of goods societies collapsed, thus any other reason caused societies stop existing.
E. Information from stalactites also suggests that the collapse of some societies coincided with periods of abnormally high rainfall.
Abnormally high water could have resulted in crops loss and thereby society crush.

Answer D.

Scientist: Cross-sections of stalactites - calcite formations deposited on cave ceilings by seeping water - can reveal annual variations in rainfall in particular areas over hundreds and thousands of years. We often found that when-according to these cross-sections-drought occurred in a particular area, it coincided with the collapse of an ancient society in that area. I hypothesize that drought reduced agricultural productivity in these areas, thereby leaving these societies without the resources needed to handle internal stresses and external threats.

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the support for the scientist's hypothesis?

A. Many droughts indicated in the cross-sections of stalactites do not correspond with the collapse of a society in that area.
---out of scope. We should be concerned about the hypothesis that is related to the collapsed societies.

B. Information from the cross-sections of stalactites alone cannot reveal the level of agricultural output in an area at a particular time.
---irrelevant. Passage states that draught caused loss in agriculture. So we need to consider that fact.

C. Most of the societies that collapsed during droughts did so when internal power struggles coincided with military raids from neighboring societies.
---strengthener

D. Most of the societies that collapsed during droughts maintained large stockpiles of food and water at the time of their collapse.
--- correct

E. Information from stalactites also suggests that the collapse of some societies coincided with periods of abnormally high rainfall.
--- some will always be there

Conclusion: thereby leaving these societies without the resources needed to handle internal stresses and external threats.

Pre-thinking always helps. we need to weaken above statement. how to do it? this is happening cause due to drought , they are not able to grow anything. what if they have a lot of saved for drought season ???

D is written on the same lines. Straight D is correct answer.
_________________

Can anyone please explain why C cannot be an answer choice?

C states that the societies collapsed because of reasons other than lack of resources.

Let me try to help you. As mentioned above your conclusion is : thereby leaving these societies without the resources needed to handle internal stresses and external threats. To elaborate on that it is trying to make a point that if there will not less/no agriculture, there will be no/less resources needed to handle internal stresses and external threats.

choice C is not talking about resources. think it more like this way. suppose they have a lot of food to fill everyone for whole season, but due to internal power struggles coincided with military raids from neighboring societies, they perished. is it seems a right idea.

Hope it helped. ask specific question if any.
_________________

The conclusion states a CAUSE-EFFECT relationship between:
1. DROUGHTS and LACK OF RESOURCES
2. LACK OF RESOURCES and INABILITY TO COPE
3. INABILITY TO COPE and COLLAPSE

And by transitivity, states a CAUSE-EFFECT relationship between:
4. DROUGHTS and COLLAPSE.

You can see each of the three relationships above as INPUT -> BLACK BOX -> OUTPUT

For example: DROUGHT -> BLACK BOX -> LACK OF RESOURCES

What B is trying to do is to describe or explain the workings inside the first black box. But this is not really relevant to know that THE CONCLUSION DOES STATE such CAUSE-EFFECT relationship, and we don't actually know whether the data resulting from knowing the relationship between drought and agricultural output will support or weaken the DROUGHT-RESOURCES relationship.

In contrast, D clearly counters the first CAUSE-EFFECT relationship and therefore MAKES TRANSITIVITY INAPPLICABLE to get (4). That is, the Conclusion (4) FALLS APART or is -AT THE LEAST- SEVERELY WEAKENED.

but the question asks which choice weakens the ARGUMENT. The whole paragraph is the support for the hypothesis[b], not just the conclusion. I understand the rationale behind your explanation for eliminating B but I think there needs to be a clearer/less debatable way to think about this. Any help here?

I am confused with how this question is written. The question asks for the the weaking of the "support" for the hypothesis, rather than the hypothesis itself. Therefore, to address the question, shouldn't we be looking at the answer choice that attacks the support portion of the argument?

The hypothesis is: drought -> agricultural insufficiency -> downfall of societies
The support for the hypothesis: cross-section analysis of stalactites indicates there are droughts

Therefore, to attack the SUPPORT, a possible weakener could be that the pattern between stalacities and droughts is not actually established

Why is this logic wrong?

lyfan512
For questions like this, it's important to recognize the underlying ground rules. Regardless of the question, we never question the premises (the stated facts) of the argument. Rather, we look for the disconnect between these premises and the stated conclusion. If we want to weaken a conclusion, we knock down its support not by denying the premises, but by showing how the premises may not lead to the conclusion as stated. I agree that this question is worded more confusingly than usual, but that is still our task. If the premises don't lead to the conclusion, then the conclusion lacks support!

Here, the argument is using a correlation (droughts, collapse) to attempt to make a very specific causal claim: it's not just that droughts cause collapse, but they cause it by leaving societies without the needed resources. That's where D fits in. If these societies had plenty of resources stockpiled at the time of collapse, then it's not at all clear that drought had this particular effect. So while the premise may still be true, it doesn't clearly support the conclusion the author wants. That's the only sense in which we have "weakened the support."

Another important point is that even if we did want to weaken a premise, answer choice A doesn't do that. In fact, we'll never see an answer that attacks a premise directly (although it may shed more light on one), since both the premises and the answer choices (for a str/wkn) are taken as true. In that way, these are like Data Sufficiency. Statements 1 & 2 can't contradict each other, since they are both true! So why isn't A knocking out a premise? Because "some do" is never negated by "some don't." If I say "Some people won't rest until they get an 800, so I can create a service specifically for the most ambitious students," that underlying premise would not be negated by "Some people would be happy with 750, 700, or even 500." This doesn't make the previous statement any less true. Subbing "many" or "often" for "some" makes no difference either, since these are vague terms. Basically, the author is saying that there were a number of times when droughts lined up with collapses. This doesn't mean they always lined up, and the argument doesn't rely on that, so A doesn't really change the status of the argument in any way.

I hope that helps!
_________________

The conclusion assumes that the drought lead to civilisation collapse through lack of internal resources. This assume is attacked by the choice D which declares that the civilisation has abundant resouces at the time it collapsed

Posted from my mobile device