LSAT 138 – Section 3 – Question 13

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Curve Question
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PT138 S3 Q13
+LR
Most strongly supported +MSS
Causal Reasoning +CausR
A
5%
159
B
1%
150
C
1%
151
D
3%
156
E
89%
165
130
141
152
+Easier 147.528 +SubsectionMedium

The size of northern fur seals provides a reliable indication of their population levels—the smaller the average body size of seals in a population, the larger the population. Archaeologists studied seal fossils covering an 800-year period when the seals were hunted for food by Native peoples in North America and found that the average body size of the seals did not vary significantly.

Summary
The average body size of a certain seal type reveals information about their population levels. Smaller average body sizes in seal populations indicate a larger population. Fossils show that during an 800-year period when seals were hunted by Native Americans, the average body size of seals did not vary significantly.

Strongly Supported Conclusions
The population size of northern fur seals likely did not vary significantly over the 800-year period when they were hunted by Native Americans for food.

A
During the 800-year period studied, seal hunting practices did not vary substantially between different groups of Native peoples in North America.
This is unsupported because different hunting practices could occur at the same time that the seal body size and population remain constant.
B
The body size of northern fur seals is not strongly correlated with the overall health of the seals.
This is unsupported because the stimulus gives us no information to assess the health of the seals, which could be independent from population size.
C
Before the 800-year period studied, the average body size of northern fur seals fluctuated dramatically.
This is unsupported because the fossil evidence only covers the 800-year period, meaning we don’t know what happened before or after that period.
D
Native peoples in North America made an effort to limit their hunting of northern fur seals in order to prevent depletion of seal populations.
This is unsupported because there could be many other reasons that explain the constant body size of seals outside of intentionally limited hunting practices.
E
Hunting by Native peoples in North America did not significantly reduce the northern fur seal population over the 800-year period studied.
This is strongly supported because if the Native peoples had significantly reduced the population, we would expect the average size of the seals to have changed.

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