Self-study
Conclusion It can safely be concluded that there are at least as many trees in Seclee as there are in Martown.
Conclusion without Premises
The stimulus gives us a conclusion with no premises: that Seclee has at least as many — i.e., not less; the same amount or more — trees as Martown.
Question Strategy
This is an unusual question format. Notice that this is a sufficient assumption question, but we're given only the conclusion. So the answer choice we're looking for is a premise from which we can conclude that Seclee has at least as many trees as Martown — i.e., a premise that doesn't require any additional assumptions to guarantee this conclusion. For this question, it makes sense to go to the answer choices right away.
9.
From which one of the █████████ ████ ███ ██████████ █████████ ███████
a
More trees were ███████ ██ ██████ ██ ███ ████ ███ █████ ████ ██ ████████
Incorrect. Even if more trees were planted in the last two years in Seclee than in Martown, if Martown had significantly more trees to begin with, then this wouldn't guarantee that Seclee would have at least as many trees now as Martown does.
b
Seclee is the ██████ ██████ █████ ███████ ██ ████████
This is correct. If Seclee is the name of the region where Martown is located, then Seclee contains all the trees in Martown. This means that even if there are no other trees in Seclee outside Martown, Seclee will still have as many trees as Martown does.
c
Martown is suffering ████ ██ ████████ ██ ██████████ ██████████
Incorrect. This just tells us about a place called Martown. We need a premise that would also allow us to draw a conclusion about Seclee, and specifically compare the number of trees between Seclee and Martown.
d
The average annual ████████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████ ████ ███ ███████ ██████ ████████ ███ ████████
Incorrect. This doesn't work on its own to guarantee the conclusion: we would need the additional assumption that greater average annual rainfall necessarily means more trees. For all we know, Seclee is in a region that gets a lot of rain and still has no trees.
e
The average number ██ █████ ███ ████ ████████ ██ ███████ ██ ██████ ████ ██ ███████
Incorrect. This doesn't work to guarantee the conclusion. If Martown has a hundred times more trees than Seclee, then it could still have more trees than Seclee even if it cuts more trees down every year.