June 2007, Passage 2, Question 13
Transcript
Go on to the next question. Question 13, which the following principles underlies the arguments in both passages? Now this is actually a logical reasoning question type that has made its way over into reading comprehension, it's a principle-identify question. This isn't common but it's also not uncommon.
About two or three of the reading comprehension questions will be basically logical reasoning question types that are asked about a reading comp passage. You're gonna treat them basically the same as you treat the question when you do it in logical reasoning when you ask for a principle that underlies an argument. It's very similar to an inference question. We're looking for a rule, or some sort of general principle that both passages provide some evidence of, or both passages rely on.
So let's see what the answer choices say. Answer choice A, investigations of the evolutionary origins of human behaviors must take into account the behavior of nonhuman animals. Well, neither passage mentions nonhuman animals so answer choice A is not what we're looking for. B, all human capacities can be explained in terms of the evolutionary advantages they offer.
This would be a great answer choice if not for that word, all. I know that both authors think that some human capacities can be explained in terms of evolutionary advantages because they discuss music in terms of evolutionary advantages. But I don't know that that extends to all possible human capabilities, or human capacities.
So this goes too far, it's too extreme for the information we've been given. C, the fact that a single neurological system underlies two different capacities is evidence that those capacities evolved concurrently. Well, that definitely meets the author of passage A's argument. Because basically the author of passage A says that music and language are two different systems running on the same hardware.
But the author of passage B never mentions anything like that so this is not something that underlies both passages, just A. Go to answer choice D, the discovery of the neurological basis of human behavior constitutes the discovery of the essence of that behavior. Now, passage A mentions neurological bases but never says that it's the essence of anything.
And again, passage B doesn't mention that so that can't be our answer. Which means by default, the answer has to be E, let's see why. The behavior of modern-day humans can provide legitimate evidence concerning the evolutionary origins of human abilities. Well, both authors mentioned things that go on today as part of their evidence. Passage A says, the primacy of language over music that we can observe today, so talking about things that are going on right now.
And the author of passage B says, well, they've got this whole experiment about face-to-face mother-infant interactions filmed at 24 frames a second. That's happening today. So they both think that the behavior of modern-day humans can provide evidence about where things evolved from. So E is our answer.
Read full transcriptAbout two or three of the reading comprehension questions will be basically logical reasoning question types that are asked about a reading comp passage. You're gonna treat them basically the same as you treat the question when you do it in logical reasoning when you ask for a principle that underlies an argument. It's very similar to an inference question. We're looking for a rule, or some sort of general principle that both passages provide some evidence of, or both passages rely on.
So let's see what the answer choices say. Answer choice A, investigations of the evolutionary origins of human behaviors must take into account the behavior of nonhuman animals. Well, neither passage mentions nonhuman animals so answer choice A is not what we're looking for. B, all human capacities can be explained in terms of the evolutionary advantages they offer.
This would be a great answer choice if not for that word, all. I know that both authors think that some human capacities can be explained in terms of evolutionary advantages because they discuss music in terms of evolutionary advantages. But I don't know that that extends to all possible human capabilities, or human capacities.
So this goes too far, it's too extreme for the information we've been given. C, the fact that a single neurological system underlies two different capacities is evidence that those capacities evolved concurrently. Well, that definitely meets the author of passage A's argument. Because basically the author of passage A says that music and language are two different systems running on the same hardware.
But the author of passage B never mentions anything like that so this is not something that underlies both passages, just A. Go to answer choice D, the discovery of the neurological basis of human behavior constitutes the discovery of the essence of that behavior. Now, passage A mentions neurological bases but never says that it's the essence of anything.
And again, passage B doesn't mention that so that can't be our answer. Which means by default, the answer has to be E, let's see why. The behavior of modern-day humans can provide legitimate evidence concerning the evolutionary origins of human abilities. Well, both authors mentioned things that go on today as part of their evidence. Passage A says, the primacy of language over music that we can observe today, so talking about things that are going on right now.
And the author of passage B says, well, they've got this whole experiment about face-to-face mother-infant interactions filmed at 24 frames a second. That's happening today. So they both think that the behavior of modern-day humans can provide evidence about where things evolved from. So E is our answer.
