PT6.S3.Q15 - Twenty years ago the Republic of Rosinia...

HopefullyHLS

help

Dear all,

I have a hard time to be fully convinced of why AC B is a necessary assumption.

I'm mostly disturbed by the phrase "most commonly grown". I would have interpreted the modifier "commonly grown" as the non-new potato strains, and then B would obviously be the correct answer (since, if the non-new strains could have produced the same yields as 20 years ago, it would wreck the argument). But isn't "most commonly grown" a modifier which indicate a subset of those non-new potato strains? If so, the negation of that assumption could still be compatible with the argument (e.g. if this subset comprised 55% of the potatoes 20 years ago, that is 55 million tons, then even if it did reach the 55 million tons the argument would still hold).

Thanks!

andre3000

Hey - I'm not completely sure I am understanding your question but will try to explain, hopefully something sticks.

So within the argument the stimulus is specifically trying to argue that it was those researchers' fault for the decrease in potato yield. It tries to do this through a veiled correlation --> causation phenom.

The correlation being - "hey we noticed you researchers were working on new strains, and hey over the course of the same period our potato yields went down." So, with that being said let's blame those researchers, it's their fault.

From there, what is the necessary assumption? Well we need it to be the case that it was those researchers who are at fault, and really block any other possible reason.

B is saying those old potatoes we used to grow, well there's now way they would hit 60 million, cause their minimum would be (idk pick a number) 75 million last year if they were being planted.

If you negate it, those old potatoes could have produced those yields last year, we can't really blame the researchers. Maybe 60 million is within their normal range for rainy seasons and it was a rainy season (I'm not an expert, completely made that up as an example). All this answer choice is doing is "blocking" an alternative reason.

Hope this helps!