Q2

[tara_amber1]

This is a specific reference question. For questions that ask you to refer back to a line to reiterate the purpose, you want to look at the sentence that came right before it. I'd like to thank a fellow LSAT geek who taught me this wonderful trick, I forget the name though.

If you were able to understand that the last paragraph is about how to carry out that alternative, fire management method the author is rooting for, this question should be relatively easy for you. We are also told in the sentence before "maintenance burns" appears, that "intentional lighting of controlled burns...reduce the risk of extensive damage." This practice is carried out by fuel, also mentioned in the third paragraph.

(E) is correct because it states just that: "naturally or intentionally set fires that are allowed to burn to eliminate fuel"

(A) The ancient ponderosa forests were used as an example in the first paragraph to show the dependency of forests on naturally occurring fires. This is out.

(B) Is maintenance referring to reducing the population of trees? No! And we're trying to reduce the risk of damage, not burning more trees down.

(C) This is the opposite of what maintenance burns are. This describes lines 1-3.

(D) No, because line 55 states that maintenance burns at 15- to 20-year intervals are needed.

[dhlim3]

I thought E) was wrong because it used the word "eliminate". This passage uses "fuel" to mean "trees", and the the purpose of the maintenance fire is to REDUCE the density of the tree to lessen the damage of the future fire. So I thought the word "eliminate" in the answer choice was a critical flaw because it contradicts the point of "maintenance fire" (eliminating fuels means eliminating trees, which is NOT what the maintenance fire purports to do).

Please explain why my reasoning is flawed.

[ohthatpatrick]

You're definitely correct that 'eliminate' is surprisingly strong, but I think you're mixed up on the distinction between the old, large, fire-tolerant trees and everything else ("fuel").

The goal of fire-management is basically to save the big, old, fire-tolerant trees and to prevent the start of crazy large, unmanageable fires.

The big old trees are not threatened by natural wildfires. These wildfires basically clear out small, new trees and underbrush.

The passage is highlighting a problem that arises if we prevent wildfires from doing their job: small, new trees and underbrush will start to accumulate.

This accumulating small stuff is the "fuel" that would spark a GIANT fire.

Line 20 indicates "deadwood and other FUELS build up".

Paragraph 3 is all about how firefighters are learning that they need to monitor this buildup of fuel.

How do we get rid of the small trees? Line 45, we selectively cut 'em down and sell them as timber.

How do we get rid of the deadwood and underbrush? Line 44 / 51 "prescribed fires" / "controlled burns".

So a "maintenance burn" is something we would do every 15-20 years (akin to the natural cycle of wildfires) to clear out all the small stuff (fuel), keep the big old trees we want, and prevent the conditions that would be conducive to SUPER-fires.

Although 'eliminate' in (E) is a little harsh, nothing else is even close to correctly describing what a 'maintenance burn' is.

You wrote:
This passage uses "fuel" to mean "trees"

That's not quite correct --- some fuel is not trees and some trees are not fuel. Just make sure you're in the habit of researching line references to see, "Wait -- what do they mean again by 'fuel'?" And then keep track of distinctions as best you can -- that's the meat and potatoes of RC. Old trees vs. young trees is a meaningful distinction in this passage.

Hope this helps.

[jm.kahn]

Is A wrong only because it refers to ancient forests?

Would A be correct had it said "fires similar to the low-intensity fires that regularly occurred in the ancient forests"?

[layamaheshwari]

You're definitely correct that 'eliminate' is surprisingly strong, but I think you're mixed up on the distinction between the old, large, fire-tolerant trees and everything else ("fuel").

The goal of fire-management is basically to save the big, old, fire-tolerant trees and to prevent the start of crazy large, unmanageable fires.

The big old trees are not threatened by natural wildfires. These wildfires basically clear out small, new trees and underbrush.

The passage is highlighting a problem that arises if we prevent wildfires from doing their job: small, new trees and underbrush will start to accumulate.

This accumulating small stuff is the "fuel" that would spark a GIANT fire.

Line 20 indicates "deadwood and other FUELS build up".

Paragraph 3 is all about how firefighters are learning that they need to monitor this buildup of fuel.

How do we get rid of the small trees? Line 45, we selectively cut 'em down and sell them as timber.

How do we get rid of the deadwood and underbrush? Line 44 / 51 "prescribed fires" / "controlled burns".

So a "maintenance burn" is something we would do every 15-20 years (akin to the natural cycle of wildfires) to clear out all the small stuff (fuel), keep the big old trees we want, and prevent the conditions that would be conducive to SUPER-fires.

Although 'eliminate' in (E) is a little harsh, nothing else is even close to correctly describing what a 'maintenance burn' is.

You wrote:
This passage uses "fuel" to mean "trees"

That's not quite correct --- some fuel is not trees and some trees are not fuel. Just make sure you're in the habit of researching line references to see, "Wait -- what do they mean again by 'fuel'?" And then keep track of distinctions as best you can -- that's the meat and potatoes of RC. Old trees vs. young trees is a meaningful distinction in this passage.

Hope this helps.

Hi Patrick,

Thank you for your explanation and for noting that "eliminate" in [E] is a little harsh. That's what precluded me from selecting this answer choice.

Could you go into a little more detail on why [A] is wrong? I selected it because the "maintenance burns" are clearly performing a function akin to what the low-intensity fires in forests of yore naturally did.

PS - My exam is tomorrow!

[JorieB701]

WOOOOOW, I did this during a PT and only upon review do I realize that the "fuel" being referred to in this passage are the trees! I guess I really need to work on my reading comprehension. lol

Anyway, this is old but I'm going to talk about A because I got tricked by it as well.

I think A is a tricky one because at this point we're trained to seek out answers to questions like these not only by what is being referred to in the immediate vicinity of the line they're referencing, but often the answer will come from somewhere else in the passage where they more clearly defined the term or phenomena that's being tested. In this case, E is so obviously right that during my PT and after I had circled A, I looked back at E and said to myself, "Watch, it's going to be E." But for some reason I didn't change my answer.

I could be wrong but I feel like A is wrong, not because it doesn't pass the fact test or properly describe what the forests need in order to reduce the risk of more serious fires, I think it's wrong because of the nature of what questions like these are asking us to do. They're not asking for the kind of fires that would generally help solve the problem that's being described, they're asking a very specific question, which is, when the author used this term, maintenance burns, what did he mean by that? What would a maintenance burn look like? And lines 50-55 very clearly define exactly what the author means by this. Well, according to the author, he thinks "the intentional lighting of controlled burns.. allowing fires set by lightning to burn in certain situations.. once fuels are reduced by these fires..." will reduce the risks of crazy wildfires. So, the author prescribed these burns then provided a definition, if you will, of what he means by that. And the question is just asking you, what was that definition again?