PrepTest 141, Section 2, 5. Science writer: Lemaitre…

How will the right answer fit in terms of support and conclusion?

Only the right answer will accurately describe a flaw in the argument. But you usually don’t even need to know what the flaw is, since only the right answer will accurately describe the support and conclusion.

Highlight the main conclusion in the passage, if there is one:

Lemaitre’s theory must be considered inadequate.

Science writer: [BACKGROUND]. [BACKGROUND]. [BACKGROUND]. Yet because [SUPPORT], [CONCLUSION].

Don’t get confused by the “If…” statement. The author doesn’t use that reasoning to support the conclusion, so focus on mapping the answers to the last sentence.

Map the wording of the answers to the wording of the passage:

(A) Tricky, but the theory mentioned in the support isn’t “attributed” to anyone. And the conclusion isn’t “derived” from Lemaitre’s assertions, since the author is disagreeing with Lemaitre. So there is no “purported expert” the author is relying on.

(B) There is no “shift in meaning of a key term”. Answers that say this kind of thing have almost always been wrong, so it’s safe to eliminate them unless you’re sure what the key term is. 

(C) There’s no cause-and-effect claim in the passage, just facts and conditional reasoning. So “takes for granted the existence of a causal connection” doesn’t map to anything stated.

(D) This is a really wordy way of saying, “how do you know that one theory is more correct than the other”? The passage only says they make the “same prediction”. So it’s a pretty good question. Gotta hang onto this one.

(E) Where in the passage does it presume “only two possible explanations”? It only mentions two, but doesn’t rule anything else out.

(D) is the correct answer.