Q11 - A local chemical plant produces

[harrisapril88]

My strategy was to find an answer that parallels the argument. The argument assumes there is a causal relationship between the pesticides and otter sterility. Likewise, choice E assumes that bears cause a track like the one found, thus a bear had to have found it. What's wrong with this answer?

[tamwaiman]

Hi harrisapril88

IMO, I eliminate (E) because the the stimulus reveals a cause/effect relationship but (E) shows a conditional one.

[yuckyuks]

Would someone be able to provide a more comprehensive analysis of this question? So far, I think the structure of the prompt looks like this:

x makes y
y can cause z
z and y occur together
therefore y --> z

Can we go through how each wrong answer doesn't do that, and how the right one does?

Thank you so much!

[Shiggins]

Would someone be able to provide a more comprehensive analysis of this question? So far, I think the structure of the prompt looks like this:

x makes y
y can cause z
z and y occur together
therefore y --> z

Can we go through how each wrong answer doesn't do that, and how the right one does?

Thank you so much!

I hope I can help.
X = Pesticides
Y = Sterility in otters
Z = Plant operating

A local chemical plant that produces pesticides "can" -> lead to sterility in otters.
This clause here is not a definite conditional statement due to the term "can". This is very important. The pesticides do not always lead to sterility in otters. X can-> Y ( I will still write it in conditional terms to help)

After Plant began operating-> sterility among otters began increasing. Here we have a cause and effect.
Z-> Y

Conclusion:
Therefore, pesticides are "definitely contaminating the river."
The flaw here is that the author concludes something must have happened base on evidence that it can happen.

choice B:
Diet low in calcium "can"-> drop in egg production.
After the foraging the egg production dropped. Conclusion: Must have had low calcium diet. Again it concluded something must have happened base on evidence that it can happen.

A- Bacteria that cause Tetanus -> live in digestive tract
tetanus is highly infectious. At this point there is no parallel of the stimulus. It is just describing tetanus
C- Animals undernourished-> susceptible to infection.
Animals in metropolitan not undernourished-> must be very susceptible. This choice is a negation of the conditional statements.

When you have A->B then it says ~A->~B. It confuses necessary with sufficient. The difference here is that our stimulus does not have exact conditional statements like this choice.

D- Def of apes -> opposable thumbs and no external tail
We are given one necessary condition "the Opposable thumbs" and are told it must be an ape. Opposable thumbs are not sufficient to determine an ape.
E- If you have a track then you know for sure its a bear. That is the only animal that can produce it. No bears-> track is fake. This actually is not wrong. If you have no bears then you should have no track, so the track seen might be fabricated.

I hope this helps and I hope it did not confuse you. If anyone wants to add or correct me. Much appreciated.

[giladedelman]

Great explanation! Thanks a lot.

I would just add that the major flaw in the original argument is that it goes from correlation to causation. We know that the plant is producing chemicals, and that once the plant started operating, the otters starting going sterile. But just because one thing happens before another does not mean that the first thing caused the second thing. Answer (B) repeats this flaw: just because the chickens were let out to eat in the woods, then stopped laying eggs, doesn't mean that the new diet caused the drop in egg production.