Agricultural societies

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Agricultural societies

by sparsh.21 » Fri Jan 09, 2009 10:25 am
Agricultural societies cannot exist without staple crops. Several food plants, such as kola and okra, are known to have been domesticated in western Africa, but they are all supplemental, not staple, foods. All the recorded staple crops grown in western Africa were introduced from elsewhere, beginning, at some unknown date, with rice and yams. Therefore, discovering when rice and yams were introduced into western Africa would establish the earliest date at which agricultural societies could have arisen there.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?
A. People in western Africa did not develop staple crops that they stopped cultivating once rice and yams were introduced.

B. There are no plants native to western Africa that, if domesticated, could serve as staple food crops.

C. Rice and yams were grown as staple crops by the earliest agricultural societies outside of western Africa.

D. Kola and okra are better suited to growing conditions in western Africa than domesticated rice and yams are.

E. Kola and okra were domesticated in western Africa before rice and yams were introduced there.

OA is A

Please explain your answer.
Source: — Critical Reasoning |

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Re: Agricultural societies

by logitech » Fri Jan 09, 2009 4:41 pm
Assumption should have a close to to the conclusion, we are talking about RICE and YAMS so this eliminates B, D and E

Between C and A , we care about the earliest agricultural societes in Western Africa so A is the winner.

Also if you negate the A, you will see that conclusion falls apart.

A. People in western Africa DID develop staple crops that they stopped cultivating once rice and yams were introduced.

So you can not find out the exact date with the introduction date.
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by Bidisha800 » Fri Jan 09, 2009 7:54 pm
easy (A)
Drill baby drill !

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by sparsh.21 » Fri Jan 09, 2009 9:19 pm
I always make mistakes in assumption questions.... :(
Can anyone explain how to crack assumption questions in CR ?

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by logitech » Fri Jan 09, 2009 9:37 pm
Check this out
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Critical Reasoning.doc
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by sparsh.21 » Sat Jan 10, 2009 12:23 am
very good material..... thanks for uploading !!! :)

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by DjProTek » Sat Jan 10, 2009 1:10 am
By reading the question stem, we see that we are looking for an assumption made by the stimulus. Since we're looking for an assumption, we can use the Assumption Negation Technique. If you are not familiar with this technique, ANT is when you negate the answer choices. The correct answer will directly contradict the conclusion of the stimulus, the other answer choices will not. In this case it would be:

A. People in western Africa DID develop staple crops that they stopped cultivating once rice and yams were introduced.
- If people in western Africa did develop staple crops before rice and
yams were introduced then agricultural societies could have
previously existed. Thus, finding when rice and yams were
introduced would do nothing to establish the earliest date at which
agricultural societies could have arisen there. This directly contradicts
the conclusion. CORRECT.

B. There ARE plants native to western Africa that, if domesticated, could serve as staple food crops.
-The conclusion, as stated earlier, deals with rice and yams. This is to broad in scope in my opinion, and not the answer. INCORRECT

C. Rice and yams WERE NOT grown as staple crops by the earliest agricultural societies outside of western Africa.
-This is pretty irrelevant. We're not worried about the earliest agricultural societies, we're dealing with societies IN Africa. INCORRECT

D. Kola and okra ARE NOT better suited to growing conditions in western Africa than domesticated rice and yams are.
-In my opinion, this one is somewht close, but there is nothing dealing with the time of the introduction. INCORRECT

E. Kola and okra WERE NOT domesticated in western Africa before rice and yams were introduced there.
- This is irrelevant. Kola and Okra are not staple foods so this fact does
not matter. Also, this does not contradict anything in the stimulus.
This could/could not be true. INCORRECT.

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by Brad.C » Fri May 13, 2016 1:49 pm
Answer is clearly A