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Question

Difficulty: MediumStrengthen

Match each of the following research arguments with the supplementary finding that most strongly strengthens its conclusion.

  • Geochemist: Drill cores from ancient glacial ice sheets show a sharp spike in sulfur dioxide aerosols coinciding with a mass cooling event 40,000 years ago. Therefore, massive volcanic eruptions must have triggered this sudden cooling.The ice core layers containing the sulfur spike also preserve volcanic ash shards whose chemical signatures match volcanic calderas active during that era.
  • Cognitive Scientist: Bilingual adults who regularly translate between distinct language families exhibit significantly higher working memory resilience in late adulthood than monolinguals. Thus, the active mental effort of language switching protects against age-related cognitive decline.Baseline assessments conducted before the subjects began professional translation showed no initial differences in working memory capacity between the bilingual and monolingual groups.
  • Urban Planner: After a municipality replaced fixed-route suburban buses with on-demand microtransit shuttles, commuter satisfaction ratings increased by 35 percent. Thus, the introduction of flexible routing is what improved residents' view of suburban transit.Transit fares, vehicle cleanliness standards, and average travel times remained constant throughout the implementation of the flexible shuttle service.

Answer

The geological argument matches the discovery of volcanic ash shards linking sulfur spikes to eruptions; the cognitive science argument matches the baseline testing that eliminates pre-existing memory advantages; and the urban planning argument matches the constancy of fares and travel times that rules out confounding factors.
Each match correctly identifies the piece of evidence that reinforces the specific causal attribution made in the argument: confirming the volcanic origin of the chemical marker strengthens the paleoclimate claim, establishing baseline cognitive equivalence across groups strengthens the language-switching claim, and ruling out extraneous transit service improvements strengthens the microtransit claim.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the central claim and logical gap in each argument on the left.
The first argument assumes sulfur spikes came from volcanoes; the second assumes translation caused better memory rather than pre-existing differences; the third assumes flexible routing drove satisfaction rather than other service changes.
Strengthening an argument requires identifying unstated assumptions or unaddressed alternative explanations.
2
Evaluate the findings on the right to see which statement addresses each argument's specific vulnerability.
Volcanic ash confirms the volcanic source for the ice core argument; pre-translation baseline equality eliminates selection bias for the cognitive study; unchanging fares and amenities rule out extraneous variables for the transit study.
A valid strengthener either confirms a necessary causal link or rules out a prominent alternative hypothesis.
3
Pair each argument with its corresponding strengthening evidence.
All three pairs are uniquely and unambiguously aligned based on their causal mechanisms and subject matter.
Matching each premise-conclusion gap with its precise evidentiary bridge completes the required pairing.

Key Concept

Strengthening an argument by providing direct corroborating evidence, eliminating selection bias, or controlling for confounding variables.
Estimated Time:1m 30s
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