Self-study
Support For there to be a thriving population of turtles in a pond, conditions at that pond must be beneficial to turtles. ███ █████ ██ ████████ █████ ██████ ████ ██ ███████ █████ ██ ███████ █████ █████ ████ ███ ██ █ ████████ ██████████ ██ ███████ ██ ████████ █████
Summary
The author concludes that there must not be a thriving population of turtles at Wallakim Pond. Why? Because of the following:
In order to have a thriving population of turtles in a pond, conditions in the pond must be beneficial to turtles.
The water in Wallakim Pond is acidic.
Missing Connection
We want to prove that there isn’t a thriving turtle population at Wallakim Pond. To do that, we want to prove that the pond doesn’t have what’s necessary for a thriving turtle population — we want to prove that the pond doesn’t have conditions beneficial to turtles.
Do we have enough to prove that? No...the other premise simply states that Wallakim Pond is acidic. But is an acidic pond something that does NOT benefit turtles? We don’t know. To make the argument valid then, we want to establish that an acidic pond is a condition that does NOT benefit turtles.
19.
Which one of the following, ██ ████████ ███████ ███ ██████████ ██████████ ██ ██ ████████ ██████
a
If the water ██ █ ████ ██ ███ ███████ ███ ██████████ ██ ████ ████ ███ ██████████ ██ ████████
We want to establish that if the water IS acidic, the conditions are NOT beneficial to turtles. (A) is the sufficiency/necessity confused version of what want. It doesn’t establish when something is NOT beneficial to turtles.
b
The most important ██████ ████ ██████████ ███████ █ ████ ████ ████ █ ████████ ██████ ██████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ██████
(B) doesn’t indicate whether acidity is something that tends to decrease the chances of a thriving turtle population or increase it. We don’t currently have any premises establishing that acidity in water is something that doesn’t benefit turtle populations.
c
The water conditions ██ ███████ ████ ███ ████ ██████████ ██ ███████ ████ ███ ███ █████ ██████████ ██ ████████ █████
(C) doesn’t establish that the conditions in Wallakim Pond are not beneficial to turtles. Although they are not as beneficial to turtles as the conditions are in Sosachi Pond, that does not establish that conditions at Wallakim are not beneficial.
d
Wallakim Pond would ████ █ ████████ ██████████ ██ ███████ ██ ██ ████ ███ ███████
(D) establishes that if Wallakim were NOT acidic, the turtle population there would be thriving. But we’re trying to show that because Wallakim IS acidic, the turtle population is NOT thriving. (D) is a sufficiency/necessity confused version of something that could have been correct.
e
The conditions at █ ████ ███ ██████████ ██ ███████ ████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ███ ████ ██ ███ ███████
(E) establishes that in order for conditions to be beneficial to turtles, the water in the pond cannot be acidic. Since the water at Wallakim Pond IS acidic, we can infer that the conditions are NOT beneficial to turtles. In connection with the first premise, we can conclude that the turtle population there is NOT thriving.