Q27

[renata.gomez]

Can someone explain why E is wrong?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Happy to!

The author's primary purpose to argue for a revision of how we view prehistoric humans. The view we may all be familiar with, according to the author, does not match much of what researchers have discovered. Answer choice (D) correctly describes the author's purpose of revising a current view.

Incorrect Answers
(A) is out of scope. The passage does not name outdated research methods.
(B) is too narrow. The author offers an alternative view to the one currently popular. This is different than exposing preconceptions, which is about undermining one view, as opposed to proposing an alternative view.
(C) has the wrong purpose. The author is here for more than presenting a possible narrative of how historical events might have unfolded.
(E) doesn't go far enough. The author is here to advocate, NOT to merely describe.

#officialexplanation

[renata.gomez]

Thank you! I have to be careful to consider the overall tone and when answering these questions.

[abrenza123]

I'm not trying to overly parse words - I know how these words function in plain english, but LSAT language can be very nuanced and these purpose questions can definitely be tricky and I've def at the point where I am over thinking/over analyzing the meaning of these terms in the ACs and in LSAT-speak, so I just wanted to clarify the above explanation about how answer D is advocating vs. answer B which is describing... In LSAT language, how is "explain the basis" different than "describe how"? Do LSAT authors usually view "describe" as less neutral, so to speak, than "explain"?

E seemed incorrect to me because I thought E was incorrect because the phrase "has replaced" the traditional traditional conception is too strong/not fully supported in the passage.

While the author seems to align with the researchers studying taphonomy, they kept saying things like "according to THESE researchers," leading me to to think that the author was explaining an (alternate) new view (that group of researchers') of early hominids in light of new findings and their implications, rather than providing an account of events as to how this new view came to supplant the traditional one.

I didn't think that there was support in the passage to go so far as to say that the new theory had already replaced the old one and is the prevailing/dominating view ...

[ohthatpatrick]

I'm with you on this one. I don't think "describe" is a reason to get rid of (E). I would get rid of it because 'replaced' is too strong.

Lines 9 - 20 sound like our author rejects Darwin's conception as being the correct truth:
"anthro's from Darwin on have CONFUSED .... "
"These anthro's have FAILED TO CONSIDER ..."

But the rest of the passage is too soft to constitute the idea that "NEW theory has replaced OLD theory".

"Recent developments have called into question OLD theory ..."
"According to these researchers, evidence suggests that Darwin's vision should be revised"

With (D), we still get the idea of NEW theory is coming to clarify the misconceptions of OLD theory; it's a "revisionary approach to a subject".

But we have safer phrasing: the author definitely explained the basis of this new approach (taphonomy).

(E) is too extreme, when it claims that this new theory has replaced the old one.

And I think describe / explain / present are all attitude-neutral verbs.

You could still write an answer choice that begins with those verbs and goes on to sound like the author had an agenda, but the verbs themselves don't indicate that the author did / didn't have an opinion.