June 2007 PrepTest, Section 3, Question 9
By Brandon Beaver | Published October 29, 2024
Type: Necessary Assumption
Difficulty:
Explanations
Absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence. Lacking evidence does not mean that thing doesn’t exist or occur.
If Johnny commits a crime, did he do it? Yes, of course. If Johnny left no evidence, did he still do it? Yes.
It’s a , so we need an answer choice the author must agree with in order to conclude the Tasmanian tiger is extinct.
Let’s see.
A
The naturalist doesn’t need to assume how the sheep farmers drove the tigers to extinction.
B
This would hurt the argument by explaining why there might be an absence of evidence.
C
Every naturalist? No, that goes too far. Maybe that at least some people have looked for evidence is an assumption, but not every naturalist.
D
Yes. In order to claim the tiger is extinct, the author would have to agree that the tiger didn’t migrate beyond its natural habitat. In fact, the author would have to agree that there aren’t any tigers in any habitat anywhere. Otherwise, how could we claim they’re extinct?
E
They could be. The author would just say that they were wrong, despite their experience.
Passage
Naturalist: The recent claims that the Tasmanian tiger is n
Question 9
Which one of the following is an assumption on which the nat