PT110.S3.Q24

SECTION 1 · rc

PASSAGE 1

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6

PASSAGE 2

Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12

PASSAGE 3

Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18

PASSAGE 4

Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26

SECTION 2 · lr

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25

SECTION 3 · lr

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26

SECTION 4 · rc

PASSAGE 1

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6

PASSAGE 2

Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14

PASSAGE 3

Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21

PASSAGE 4

Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26 Question 27

First off, this is directionally wrong on its face. Our conclusion says the predators are non-native, so if we learn there are relatively few non-native predator species, that cuts the wrong way.

Really though, it’s flatly irrelevant because number of species =/= number of predators. Like maybe there are millions of foxes from a single species massacring opossums while 80 other species only make up a few hundred animals combined.

At its best, (B) suggests there are other non-native predators out there that present an even more dire threat to opossums than foxes, strengthening the “it was non-native predators” hypothesis.

But (B) doesn’t really say that. It doesn’t tell us whether those “foreign species” were predators, for example, and it really doesn’t tell us they were predators-that-prey-on-opossums. In fact, we have active reason to believe those other foreign species don’t prey on opossums because foxes are clearly the biggest threat to opossums, having massacred 75% of them.

(C) and (E) both guard against alternative explanations. (C) is wrong because compared to (E), the alternative explanation (C) guards against is much less reasonable / likely.

At first glance, the alternative explanation in (C) is “maybe the wild opossums died of food scarcity,” which seems plausible enough. We’re guarding against that by saying “maybe something about the captive opossums’ diet was different.”

Say more. Paint that picture for me. Like really, think precisely about what that’s suggesting, and how it could work. On this alternative explanation...

The captive opossums were fed [something different and special] that let them dodge a very real food scarcity problem, allowing them to be killed by foxes instead of starvation.

What could that special diet even be? My best shot at telling this story is “maybe we force-fed the captive opossums so they got really really really fat, which made them starve much more slowly than they otherwise would have, which is why they lived long enough to be eaten by foxes.”

That scenario is possible and logically consistent, but it’s much less likely and reasonable than the alternative explanation presented in (E).

The native v. non-native distinction only matters because our conclusion mentions non-native predator species. Distinguishing between native and non-native competitors for food is irrelevant, and that distinction is all (D) accomplishes. (D) does not, for example, establish that few species compete with opossums for food.