Methods of Reasoning Questions - - Question 11

The question whether intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is certainly imprecise, because we are not sur...

calebhayter November 13, 2019

How does one determine what the claim being responded to is?

How does one determine what the claim being responded to is? This stimulus appears to possibly be a response to two different claims: “Does intelligent life exist elsewhere in the universe?” and “We should define intelligent life”. The second sentence of the stimulus can be read as a response to the second claim, or as a follow-on sentence to the first sentence of the stimulus. Read in these ways, (C) would be the correct answer choice to the first claim, and (D) would be the correct answer choice to the second claim.

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BenMingov November 13, 2019

Hi Calebhayter, thanks for the question!

I believe that in this case, the best way to determine which claim is being responded to is to use context.

The claim brought forth in the stimulus is that answering the question of whether intelligent life exists in the universe can be more precisely achieved if we define "intelligent life" in some more precise way.

The argument then proceeds to counter this claim by saying that doing so would not be helpful because the only way to find and recognize other intelligent life in the universe is to leave the definition of "intelligent life" flexible and adaptable.

This is answer choice C, which states applying a more concrete definition would be counterproductive to finding intelligent life in the universe.

Hope this helps!

saskipper February 26, 2020

C is not the correct answer.

ClaudiaSierra May 10, 2020

If C isn't the correct answer, what is?

ClaudiaSierra May 10, 2020

Nevermind I found it in the other posts for this question!