Political arguments about biodiversity and the preservation of endangered species generally assume we know what a species is. ███ █████████ ███ ████████ ██ ████ ███████████ █ ██████ ███████ ███ ████ ████ █ █████████ ███ █████████████ █████████ ███
Context ·What's a "species"? Arguments about biodiversity assume we know this.
Sibley's potential response ·Acknowledges that "species concept" is slippery
However, for practical reasons, we have to limit the number of species we recognize. (If we said you were a different species from your mom, because you have slightly different DNA, that would lead to billions of different "species" in the world. That's impractical.)
Implications of debate ·How we answer the species question has political and economic consequences
Example: Increasing number of species would likely increase number of endangered species.
Passage Style
Critique or debate
19.
If valid, Charles G. Sibley's █████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ████ ███ █████████ ██ ███ ██████ ██████████ ████ █████████ █████████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ███████████
Question Type
Implied
This is an Inference question from Sibley’s findings. At the end of P2, we see that Sibley found that North and South American vultures are more similar to storks than to European vultures, and that loons and grebes aren’t closely related.
a
A stork population ████ ██████ ██ ██████ ██ ██ ██ ███ ████ ███████ ██ ███ ████ █████ ████████
Sibley’s findings in P2 distinguish between vultures from Europe and vultures from North or South America, not storks from different locations. The passage just talks about storks in general; we don’t know how to classify storks from different locations.
6%
b
A stork population ████ █████ ███████ ██ ██████ ██ ██ ██ █ █████████ ███████ ████ ███ ████ ███████
Sibley’s findings in P2 distinguish between vultures from Europe and vultures from North or South America, not storks from these locations. The passage just talks about storks in general; we don’t know how to classify storks from different locations.
4%
c
A vulture population ████ █████ ███████ ██ ██████ ██ ██ ██ ███ ████ ███████ ██ ███ ████ ███████
Sibley’s findings show that North American vultures are more closely related to storks than to European vultures. If we classify storks and vultures as different species, Sibley probably doesn’t think that vultures from North America are the same species as vultures from Europe, since the North American vultures are more closely related to storks than they are to the European vultures.
62%
d
A vulture population ████ █████ ███████ ██ ██████ ██ ██ ██ █ █████████ ███████ ████ ███ ████ ███████
Sibley’s findings don’t challenge this assertion because Sibley found that South American vultures are less closely related to European vultures. If we say that vultures and storks are different species, then Sibley would agree that vultures from South America are probably a different species from vultures from Europe.
21%
e
A vulture population ████ █████ ███████ ██ ██████ ██ ██ ██ ███ ████ ███████ ██ ███ ████ █████ ████████
The passage doesn’t distinguish North American vultures from South American vultures, so we don’t know whether or not Sibley’s findings challenge this assertion.
7%
Difficulty
62% of people who answer get this correct
This is a difficult question.
It is similar in difficulty to other questions in this passage.
CURVE
Score of students with a 50% chance of getting this right
25%137
153
75%168
Analysis
Implied
Implied
Stems asking us to infer an idea implied by the claims in the passage (as opposed to identifying an idea that appears explicitly). Similar to most strongly supported questions in LR.
Critique or debate passages contain multiple points of view on a particular subject. Sometimes the author takes sides and participates in the critique or debate, other times the author merely reports the debate.
