In saying that Temple's supporting evidence lent his argument a "semblance of rigor" (lines 33-34), the author most l...

Annie on November 18, 2019

Hi @Kath,

This question is trying to trick the test-taker as it tells you where to look in the passage for the answer. While helpful, it's important to remember the context of the whole passage when you decide on the answer, and so you can't just look to the lines that are cited.

Answer Choices:

(A) is incorrect. The easiest way to eliminate this answer is simply that the passage never tells us that Temple attempted to use strict scientific methodology. It describes the steps he took and the experiments he did, but never tells us about the methodology in such exact words. Therefore, this answer is wrong.

(B) is incorrect. Again, the passage never states this. You are looking for an answer choice that essentially re-words the gist of the passage. The passage never says talks about how likely it is that one could get direct proof of such a hypothesis.

(C) is incorrect. This answer choice is a little bit different, as it is asking you to focus on the "semblance of rigor" phrase. This answer choice implies that some of his experiments were rigorous while others weren't. The passage never says this, but rather seems to imply that his work wasn't rigorous at all.

(D) is correct. Following the "semblance of rigor" phrase, the passage describes certain experiments that Temple took in order to determine if his hypothesis was correct. Then, later in the passage, we learn that these experiments were likely wrong as Calvaria major still exists. This tells us that the experiments likely weren't correct. This answer choice explains this in different words.

(E) is incorrect. The phrase "semblance of rigor" implies that a hypothesis was not actually rigorous. This answer choice says that Temple's work was admirable and precise, which is opposite what the passage tells us.

Courtney-McClelland on March 29, 2021

I chose answer choice B because in the same sentence referenced it states "although direct proof was unattainable," which I took to mean that even though Temple couldn't directly observe the phenomenon, he looked to secondary evidence to attempt to prove this. Based on this, I am still not seeing how B is incorrect.

dvera17 on October 5, 2021

^^ I do have a question about this too but I think I know why B is wrong. The passage mentions "unattainable" meaning he couldn't prove his theory based on the information he had available to him. I think that the word "impossible" within the answer choice B is far too drastic considering that the passage never directly mentions that it was impossible for him to prove it even with "exact" measurements. I think he couldn't prove it BECAUSE he didn't have the exact measurements. I hope I'm making sense. Again, this is solely my interpretation, I might be wrong.