Q8 - Astronomer: Conditions in our solar system have

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Role / Function

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Our solar system is probably more conducive to life than are most other similarly aged solar systems.
Evidence: Life depends on the presence of lots of heavier elements, and our sun has a higher than average amount of these heavy elements, for its age.

Answer Anticipation:
The structure of this argument is fairly straightforward. Like so many ID the Conclusion and Role paragraphs, the conclusion is in the first sentence. It contains the opinion indicator "probably". The two claims in the 2nd sentence are joined by the word "and", so we know they are both on the same level (i.e. both premises).

Since we're being asked about the first half of the 2nd sentence we'd predict an answer that says "premise" or "partial support for the conclusion" (since there are two premises).

Correct Answer:
A

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) YES. This identifies this claim as a Premise (evidence for the conclusion), and it correctly implies that the two claims in the 2nd sentence are both premises, since they're joined by "and" and neither one supports the other. There is definitely no explicit reason offered for why we should believe that life depends on heavier elements.

(B) No, this describes the existence of an Intermediate conclusion, which this argument did not have.

(C) No, this identifies the claim in question as an Intermediate conclusion.

(D) No, the first sentence is the conclusion.

(E) Nope, only the first sentence is the conclusion.

Takeaway/Pattern: Looks like this problem was written to confuse students who are savvy enough to know that Role / Function problems love to test Intermediate Conclusions. In this case, it was easy to know that the two supporting claims in the 2nd sentence were both premises because they were joined with the word "and", which always indicates that two ideas are on the same level.

Beyond that keyword giveaway, though, we can just ask ourselves whether either of these premises were supported. "Why should we believe that all forms of life depend on lots of heavier elements?" [crickets] "Why should we believe that our sun has more heavy elements than usual for its age?" [crickets] Since these premises aren't supported, we can't call them conclusions.

#officialexplanation