PT8.S4.Q11 - The sea population in the North Sea

AspiringAttorney_

I don't understand how ac A strengthens the argument. Can someone please explain?

lsat2021-1

Hi! I will give it a shot.

Conclusion: "severe pollution of the north sea waters must have weakened the immune system of the seals so that they could no longer withstand the virus"

We need to find a way to strengthen the gaps in the stimulus or come up with something that removes any doubts about the conclusion being true. I couldn't make a prediction for this one so got to the AC through method of elimination

B. Okay they have been taking the lead but how effective are they? no sense of relativity given to help us assume their success rate in pollution prevention? This does nothing for the argument. Also if it were true it will weaken the argument
C. doesn't help us prove our conclusion because doesn't talk about pollution
D. Knowing what types of seal are present also doesn't strengthen our conclusion
E. This weakens our argument. If this is true then it was the newness of the virus that was the reason for the deaths not the pollution

This leaves us with A.
A. is right because
1. it points to other data points that like the sudden seal population deaths are a result of pollution.
2. The data points received "steep drops" which matches with "suddenly" from stimulus
3. If there was pollution in the sea causing the deaths then it was bound to affect other species too right? Our seal deaths are not an anomaly. This AC proves that

AspiringAttorney_

@natal310 Thank you, your explanation helped!

lsatbeezy

This one got me too! After seeing the answer I realized that it's because it shows that similar trends of steep drops in population are happening to other animals. So it strengthens the argument by showing that something (maybe pollution) is causing this but doesn't say that exactly. The other ones don't give any support so A is the AC by using process of elimination.