Critical Reasoning

The wild mouflon sheep of the island of Corsica are direct descendants of sheep that escaped from domestication on the island 8,000 years ago. They therefore provide archaeologists with a picture of what some early domesticated sheep looked like, before the deliberate selective
breeding that produced modern domesticated sheep began.
The argument above makes which of the following assumptions?
(A) The domesticated sheep of 8,000 years ago were quite dissimilar from the wild sheep of the time.
(B) There are no other existing breeds of sheep that escaped from domestication at about the same time as the forebears of the mouflon.
(C) Modern domesticated sheep are direct descendants of sheep that were wild 8,000 years ago.
(D) Mouflon sheep are more similar to their fore bears of 8,000 years ago than modern domesticated sheep are to theirs.
(E) The climate of Corsica has not changed at all in the last 8,000 years.

Plz explain..

IMO B

one more B

IMO B

I pick D

amitdgr wrote:I pick D

OA is D. Could you explain ?

Picked 'D' as well

It was a toss between 'B' and 'D' but 'D' seemed more relevant to the context. 'B' speaks about other breeds of sheep - found the out of scope.

D on the other hand is in scope and only speaks about why wild mouflon sheep were picked for this analysis.

Maybe someone has a better explanation than this convoluted one above


-A

Mani_mba wrote:The wild mouflon sheep of the island of Corsica are direct descendants of sheep that escaped from domestication on the island 8,000 years ago. They therefore provide archaeologists with a picture of what some early domesticated sheep looked like, before the deliberate selective breeding that produced modern domesticated sheep began.
The argument above makes which of the following assumptions?
(A) The domesticated sheep of 8,000 years ago were quite dissimilar from the wild sheep of the time.
(B) There are no other existing breeds of sheep that escaped from domestication at about the same time as the forebears of the mouflon.
(C) Modern domesticated sheep are direct descendants of sheep that were wild 8,000 years ago.
(D) Mouflon sheep are more similar to their fore bears of 8,000 years ago than modern domesticated sheep are to theirs.
(E) The climate of Corsica has not changed at all in the last 8,000 years.

Plz explain..

There are several approaches to solve the assumption question. But the main thing is to find such a statement within the answer choice that if we ignore that particular choice or negate that choice then our conclusion will be weaken or failed.

The best approach is to do the NEGATION TEST.

I guess this is the simple one. I will try to explain my approach.

WMS = Wild mouflon sheep (Present time)
8000_YO_DS = 8000 years old domestic sheep
8000_YO_WS = 8000 years old wild sheep
MDS = Modern domesticated sheep

According to the premises:-
1. WMS = descendant of 8000_YO_DS
2. blah blah.... (other information not required for this question).

Now let's look at each choice one by one.

A) 8000_YO_DS != 8000_YO_WS (!= read not equal to)
So it is out of scope, as no information about 8000_YO_WS is required to assume to prove the conclusion.

B) Ask yourself do you need to other existing breeds of sheep to prove the conclusion. No, not at all. We have already a sample of WMS that can help on doing the experiment. So whether other breed is present or not doesn't either prevent to do the experiment. So, again this is OUT OF SCOPE.

(C) This is the premises. So it can never be the assumption.

(D) Yes, this is the CORRECT CHOICE. If MDS are more similar to their forebears as compare to WMS then it is useless to perform the experiment with WMS. So the assumption that WMS are more closer to their forebears is necessary to perform the experiment.

You can also test it by using NEGATION TEST.
For example,

Mouflon sheep are NOT more similar to their fore bears of 8,000 years ago than modern domesticated sheep are to theirs.

So now will the conclusion still hold after negating the option (D). NO, hence this is our CORRECT answer.

(E) Climate.... Totally OUT OF SCOPE.

Hope this helps...

I was following the post because I had picked up D and everyone else was saying B and I don't believe myself with CR because I am extremely bad with it

you guys who are good with CR can you recommend me some good strategies?

I would have stuck with (B)

explanation:

If there are other breeds of sheep which escaped domestication 8000 years ago then we cannot use WMS sheep to picture what the earliest sheep looked like because these other sheep (other breeds besides WMS) might look different (causing confusion, whether the earliest sheep looked like WMS or these other breeds) or might even have cross bred at some point in time (with each other or even with WMS). There could be 'n' number of possibilities if there are other breeds of sheep.

But according to choice B there is only 1 breed which escaped which is the WMS, thus the conclusion ''They therefore provide archaeologists with a picture of what some early domesticated sheep looked like, before the deliberate selective breeding that produced modern domesticated sheep began. '' holds true.

As MGMAT would say - this problem tests Eliminating Alternate Paths to the Same End concept.

Codesnooker - Your explanation does hold water. I am not sure whether I assumed too much here.

I would also support Rohan Gupta as if you have multiple breed then the conclusion does not hold true.

In comparing B and D, I chose D

The wild mouflon sheep of the island of Corsica are direct descendants of sheep that escaped from domestication on the island 8,000 years ago. They therefore provide archaeologists with a picture of what some early domesticated sheep looked like, before the deliberate selective breeding that produced modern domesticated sheep began.

Conc: WMS helped the arch to have a caricature of the earlier domesticated sheep than MDS which were crossbred.

Negate D : If WMS is not similar, then This conc doesnt hold true.

For B. for the premise, 8000 yrs ago, there were two categories, those domesticated and those not. WMS direct descendants of not domesticated. MDS are thru these domesticated ones which were later cross bred.
Even if B holds true/false, it doesnt affect the conc which talks of WMS vs MDS

Hence D

vinodsundaram wrote:In comparing B and D, I chose D

The wild mouflon sheep of the island of Corsica are direct descendants of sheep that escaped from domestication on the island 8,000 years ago. They therefore provide archaeologists with a picture of what some early domesticated sheep looked like, before the deliberate selective breeding that produced modern domesticated sheep began.

Conc: WMS helped the arch to have a caricature of the earlier domesticated sheep than MDS which were crossbred.

Negate D : If WMS is not similar, then This conc doesnt hold true.

For B. for the premise, 8000 yrs ago, there were two categories, those domesticated and those not. WMS direct descendants of not domesticated. MDS are thru these domesticated ones which were later cross bred.
Even if B holds true/false, it doesnt affect the conc which talks of WMS vs MDS

Hence D

Fantastic reasoning!

If we were in a pinch, we would go with D over B simply because B is extreme (NO other existing breeds of sheep).

We avoid extreme answers in necessary assumption questions (but like them in strengthen/weaken Questions).

I am still not convinced with (D). Would go with (B).
What is the OA and the source of the question?