Here is the text of the question from the file above:
"Recently discovered fossil evidence casts doubt on the evolutionary
theory that dinosaurs are more closely related to reptiles than to
other classes of animals. Fossils show that some dinosaurs had hollow
bones-a feature found today only in warm-blooded creatures, such as
birds, that have a high metabolic rate. Dinosaurs had well-developed
senses of sight and hearing, which is not true of present-day
cold-blooded creatures like reptiles. The highly arched mouth roof of
some dinosaurs would have permitted them to breathe while eating, as
fast-breathing animals, such as birds, need to do. Today, all
fast-breathing animals are warm-blooded. Finally, fossils reveal that
many dinosaurs had a pattern of growth typical of warm-blooded
animals.
The argument in the passage proceeds by
(A) attempting to justify one position by demonstrating that an
opposing position is based on erroneous information
(B) establishing a general principle that it then uses to draw a
conclusion about a particular case
(C) dismissing a claim made about the present on the basis of
historical evidence
(D) assuming that if all members of a category have a certain property
then all things with that property belong to the category
(E) presenting evidence that a past phenomenon is more similar to one
rather than the other of two present-day phenomena"
This question is from the October 1993 LSAT the first Logical Reasoning Section, number 11.
This is a method of reasoning question, it asks you to describe how the argument proceeds. This is a type of question that does appear on the GMAT and is one of the "m"s in the Veritas SWIMMER method.
Method of reasoning questions are some of the best questions to study to improve your overall critical reasoning skills. They help you to understand how arguments are structured - how they are supposed to lead to their conclusion.
You can start this type of question as you would any "normal' - meaning not inference and paradox. So start by identifying the conclusion. In this case the conclusion comes at the very beginning of the argument. This would be rare for a GMAT question! So the conclusion is
"Recently discovered fossil evidence casts doubt on the evolutionary
theory that dinosaurs are more closely related to reptiles than to
other classes of animals."
Now we want to look to the evidence for this conclusion. The rest of the passage is really the evidence - several examples of things that are not true of present-day reptiles and are true of present day birds and other warm-blooded animals.
So that is what the argument is doing - arguing for a conclusion about a type of animal that is long extinct by comparing that type to two current types of animals.
This is what answer choice E says, "presenting evidence that a past phenomenon is more similar to one
rather than the other of two present-day phenomena." Please do not get caught up in the term phenomenon. On the GMAT and the LSAT the word phenomenon has very little real meaning - it only means a thing or an event.
In this case the past phenomenon is dinosaurs and the present phenomena are warm-blooded creatures and cold-blooded creatures.
Are there any particular answer choices that are troublesome?
