Hi @Kahanding, thanks for your post. This is a Main Point question. Let's evaluate the stimulus carefully.
P: For years, scientists have been scanning the skies in the hope of finding life on other planets.
P: In spite of the ever-increasing sophistication of the equipment they employ (some of it costing hundreds of millions of dollars), scientists have not found the first shred of evidence of extraterrestrial life.
P: And there is no reason to think that these scientists will be anymore successful in the future, no matter how much money is invested in the search.
C: The dream of finding extraterrestrial life is destined to remain a dream.
Answer choice (C) correctly states the main point, i.e., that scientists searching for extraterrestrial life will not find it.
Answer choice (E) is not textually supported — the author of the stimulus does not actually say how we should (or should not) spend money.
Hope this helps! Please let us know if you have any additional questions.
raesoflyy August 4, 2018
How do we Identify the Conclusion in an argument and how can we double check that we chose the correct conclusion?
AnitaAugust 6, 2018
@raesoflyy One way you can practice spotting a conclusion is by arranging the parts of a prompt like Mehran did above (P1 + P2 [etc] = C) and adding "Therefore" in front of the C. If the resulting set up doesn't make sense, then that part isn't the conclusion. Remember that premises support conclusions, so it should usually be 1 + 2 = 3 when you're looking at how the premises add together.
EmmaApril 2, 2024
I still can't talk myself out of the answer choice that says: We should not spend money on sophisticated equipment to aid in the search for extraterrestrial life.
To me it came down to that one and the correct one:
C: Scientists searching for extraterrestrial life will not find it.
I went with the first because it talked about how no amount of money would a yield a result. To me, that reads like a conclusion, and that it is not money well-spent. While C is true, the other choice felt more specific. I can't reason why it is wrong. Is it because it is technically a premise? Again, I guess it read like a conclusion to me and I am not sure how to differentiate premises like this.
Emil-KunkinApril 8, 2024
I think e is wrong because the author never actually says that. While I think the author would likely agree with it, the author merely tells us that we will not find aliens regardless of how much we spend. This is a descriptive statement. It simply describes the world as it is. E however is a normative statement. It tells us what we should do. It's not impossible that despite the fact that we will not find aliens we should still look. Perhaps the tech we develop while looking for aliens will more than justify the investment. Perhaps that research would simply act as a welfare program. Perhaps the extremely dangerous nature of alien contact justifies searching, despite the fact it is so unlikely.
For a main point our job is to just find what the author said. The author did not include a normative statement.
