Critical Reasoning

The cause of the wreck of the ship Edmund Fitzgeraid in a severe storm on lake Superior is still unknown , when the sunken wreckage of the vessel was found, searchers discovered the hull in two pieces lying close together, The storm's violent waves would have caused separate pieces floating even briefly on the surface to drift apart. Therefore, the breakup of the hull can be ruled out as the cause of the sinking.
Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?
A. Ships as large as the Edmund Fitzgerald rarely sink except in the most violent weather.
B. Under water currents at the time of the storm did not move the separated pieces of the hull together again.
C. Pieces of the hull would have sunk more quickly than the intact hull would have
D. The waves of the storm were not violent enough to have caused the breakup
E. If the ship broke up before sinking , the pieces of the hull would not have remained on the surface for very long

OA B
Please suggest why B is correct. I mean how it is linked

2 pieces were found close to eachother, author said that storm's violent wave WOULD HAVE brought separate pieces floating on the surface to drift apart so breakup can be ruled out as a reason for sinking. THis is because if breakup occured then stormed would would have moved them apart.. Now B says author relies on assumption that there is nothing(e.egunder water currents) that can make them come together.

P.s. Pls ignore spelling mistakes, im a too tired & sleeply, Just going to sleep after this.

The explanation above is very good. You can also apply the Assumption Negation Technique to this question. We're asked to find an assumption on which the argument *depends*, and if the argument truly depends on this assumption, it must be the case that without this assumption, the argument would crumble. So let's say we *didn't* have the assumption in (B) -- let's say, that is, that underwater currents at the time of the storm may quite well have moved originally separated pieces together again. Well, the conclusion of the argument supports itself explicitly only with the evidence that if the hull had broken up when the ship was still on the surface, the pieces of the hull would have been pushed apart by the storm. But if the underwater currents could then have pushed them together again, it'd be quite plausible that the hull broke, forcing the ship to sink, that the hull pieces were driven apart by the storm, and that they were then pushed back together underwater to be found lying close to each other later. So it'd then be invalid to conclude that the hull's breaking couldn't have happened first to cause the sinking. So in order for the argument's conclusion to be valid, it relies on the assumption in B.

jainrahul1985 wrote:The cause of the wreck of the ship Edmund Fitzgeraid in a severe storm on lake Superior is still unknown , when the sunken wreckage of the vessel was found, searchers discovered the hull in two pieces lying close together, The storm's violent waves would have caused separate pieces floating even briefly on the surface to drift apart. Therefore, the breakup of the hull can be ruled out as the cause of the sinking.
Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?
A. Ships as large as the Edmund Fitzgerald rarely sink except in the most violent weather.
B. Under water currents at the time of the storm did not move the separated pieces of the hull together again.
C. Pieces of the hull would have sunk more quickly than the intact hull would have
D. The waves of the storm were not violent enough to have caused the breakup
E. If the ship broke up before sinking , the pieces of the hull would not have remained on the surface for very long

OA B
Please suggest why B is correct. I mean how it is linked

jainrahul1985 wrote:The cause of the wreck of the ship Edmund Fitzgeraid in a severe storm on lake Superior is still unknown , when the sunken wreckage of the vessel was found, searchers discovered the hull in two pieces lying close together, The storm's violent waves would have caused separate pieces floating even briefly on the surface to drift apart. Therefore, the breakup of the hull can be ruled out as the cause of the sinking.
Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?
A. Ships as large as the Edmund Fitzgerald rarely sink except in the most violent weather.
B. Under water currents at the time of the storm did not move the separated pieces of the hull together again.
C. Pieces of the hull would have sunk more quickly than the intact hull would have
D. The waves of the storm were not violent enough to have caused the breakup
E. If the ship broke up before sinking , the pieces of the hull would not have remained on the surface for very long

OA B
Please suggest why B is correct. I mean how it is linked

It is often helpful to think of assumption questions using the same mindset as weaken questions. Thinking "what could make this wrong?" can lead you to expose the assumption. There's no way to predict B - there's nothing in the argument about under water currents - but you can predict an answer that does what B DOES, or goes in the same direction - and then you would be able to recognize B for the right answer.

Here, the argument says that the ship must have broken apart AFTER it sank, since if it broke apart BEFORE it sank, the waves would've carried the two piece away from each other.

"What could make this wrong?" Well, if the ship broke apart, and the waves carried the two piece apart, but somehow they CAME BACK - that would be a case where the argument would be mistaken.
Therefore, in order for the argument to be right, we HAVE to assume that the pieces did NOT float back together after the waves separated them - for example by water currents. With this reasoning in mind, B becomes the obvious choice.