Extinction of dinosaurs caused by asteroids

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Some say that an asteroid colliding with Earth was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. It is indeed likely that such a collision did occur and that it caused the death of the vast majority of dinosaurs. However, new evidence suggests that perhaps tens of thousands of dinosaurs lived far enough from the point of collision that they were not directly killed by the impact or by the drastic change in temperature when immense dust clouds created by the impact blocked the sun. Some other force must have been responsible for the death of these remaining dinosaurs.

Which of the following, if true, is an assumption made by the author of the above argument?

a. The water supply used by the dinosaurs who survived the asteroid collision and subsequent change in global temperature had not become contaminated by lethal fallout from the collision.
b. A second asteroid impact or some other cosmic event is likely to have killed off the dinosaurs that survived the asteroid impact and global temperature change.
c. At least a few dinosaurs continued to exist for some years after the asteroid collided with Earth.
d. There is another existing theory that does a better job of explaining the extinction of the dinosaurs than the theory involving an asteroid collision with Earth.
e. The change in temperature caused when dust clouds from the asteroid impact blocked the sun could not have lasted for several years.

OA is A; isn't that way out of scope?

Source- Kaplan quizzes
Thanks,
Bharat.
Source: — Critical Reasoning |

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by David@VeritasPrep » Thu Nov 07, 2013 5:35 pm
Hey Bharat -

Another interesting question!

Answer choice A is not too far out of scope. In fact, I do not allow my students to use the phrase "out of scope" for any question other than Inference. You see, for strengthen and weaken, assumption, etc. you need to add new information. So the question is not, "is it out of scope" but rather "is it helpful?"

In this case choice A is helpful.

The conclusion is that "Some other force must have been responsible for the death of these remaining dinosaurs" so we need the dinosaurs to not have died from the results or aftermath of this particular comet. Choice A is helpful to protect our answer choice because it eliminates a possible cause of death that IS related to the asteroid. You can see that the other statements may be strengthen questions, but they are not required by the argument because they do not protect against something that would harm the conclusion.

Does that help?
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by pareekbharat86 » Sat Nov 09, 2013 12:30 am
David@VeritasPrep wrote:Hey Bharat -

Another interesting question!

Answer choice A is not too far out of scope. In fact, I do not allow my students to use the phrase "out of scope" for any question other than Inference. You see, for strengthen and weaken, assumption, etc. you need to add new information. So the question is not, "is it out of scope" but rather "is it helpful?"

In this case choice A is helpful.

The conclusion is that "Some other force must have been responsible for the death of these remaining dinosaurs" so we need the dinosaurs to not have died from the results or aftermath of this particular comet. Choice A is helpful to protect our answer choice because it eliminates a possible cause of death that IS related to the asteroid. You can see that the other statements may be strengthen questions, but they are not required by the argument because they do not protect against something that would harm the conclusion.

Does that help?
Hi David,

Thanks for the reply. I get your point.
Thanks,
Bharat.