Homework Help: critical thinking

Posted by bibi on Thursday, January 22, 2009 at 4:19pm.

In 1976 a powerful earthquake hit the city of Tangshan, China. Scientists had failed to predict the earthquake. If people had paid attention to the unusual animal behavior that preceded the earthquake, however, they would have known it was coming. Animals can often sense an impending earthquake when scientists cannot.
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9) Which of the following statements, if true, would suggest a weakness in the argument above?
A) A wide variety of phenomena can cause animals to behave strangely.
B) Scientists use a variety of sophisticated tools to monitor and predict earthquakes.
C) Many domestic as well as wild animals behaved strangely the day before the Tangshan earthquake.
D) The city of Tangshan is near a major fault line that makes it particularly susceptible to earthquakes.

critical thinking - Writeacher, Thursday, January 22, 2009 at 4:46pm
Well, for one thing, no one can predict earthquakes! So B is out.

D may very well be true, but still -- humans haven't learned how to predict earthquakes.

So ... you get to figure out which of A or C is the answer. Think. And then let us know what you come up with.

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