PT131.S1.Q22 > Analytics

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Last summer, after a number of people got sick from eating locally caught anchovies, the coastal city of San Martin advised against eating such anchovies. ███ █████████ ████ ██████████ ███████ ████ ██████ █████ █ ███████ ███████████ ████████ █ ████████ ████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██ ██ █████████ ████████ ██ ███████ ████ ██████ ███ █████ ███████ ██████ █████████ ████ ██ ██ ████ █████ ████ ██ ███ ███████ ██████ ██████████

Analysis: Surprising Claim

This is a Resolve, Reconcile, Explain question. What we want to explain is the author's claim that it is now safe to eat locally caught anchovies, because the population of a certain kind of plankton has dropped back to normal. All we've been told before this is that last summer, it wasn't safe to eat locally caught anchovies because they were tainted with a harmful neurotoxin.

22.

Which one of the following, ██ █████ █████ ████ ████ ██ ███████ ███ ██ ██ ███ ████ ██ ████ ███ █████████

Question Type

Resolve reconcile or explain

Unlike many RRE stimuli, we can actually treat this one as a full argument with a premise and a conclusion. We're told that last year, locally caught anchovies were unsafe to eat because they were tainted with domoic acid, a neurotoxin. Now, based on the premise that the population of P. Australis plankton has gone down "to normal," the author concludes that local anchovies must be safe to eat.

So the argument is clearly making a link assumption about some kind of correlation between higher populations of this plankton and the anchovies being tainted with the neurotoxin. We don't know what the exact relationship between those two things is — maybe these plankton contain this neurotoxin, and the anchovies eat the plankton — but the answer choice that explains how the stimulus reaches this conclusion will have to point to a relationship between the lower population of plankton and the anchovies no longer being tainted with domoic acid.

P. australis is ███ ██ ███████ █████████ ██ ████████ ██████ ██ ███ ██████ █████ ████ ████████ ██ ██████████ █████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████ █████ ███████ ██ ██████ █████

Incorrect. If (A) is true, we would imagine that anchovies normally contain some amount of domoic acid, including now, when P. australis is back down to normal levels. And we don't know anything about the populations of these other varieties of plankton that also cause anchovies to secrete domoic acid.

In other words, (A) alone doesn't explain why last summer, when P. australis levels were higher than usual, anchovies became unusually unsafe to consume (because (A) doesn't tell us if these "small amounts" of domoic acid can add up to an unsafe amount). And (A) doesn't explain why just knowing that P. australis levels have gone down (when we don't know if there have been any changes in the population of other plankton varieties) tells us that anchovies are now safe to eat again.

P. australis naturally ████████ ██████ █████ ██████ █████████ ███████ ██████ ██ ██████ █████ ████ ████ ███ ██████████ ██ ██ █████████ ██ ███████████████ ██████

Correct. This specifically tells us why anchovies became toxic last year, when P. australis populations were larger than ordinary, but are no longer toxic this year, when P. australis populations are back to normal.

78%

Scientists have used ██ █████████ ████████ ██ ██████ ██████ ████ ██ ███ ███████████

Incorrect. We don't know if this laboratory process that produces domoic acid from P. australis can occur in the wild.

A sharp decline ██ ███ ██████████ ██ ██ █████████ ██ █████████ ████████ ██ █ █████████████ ████ ██ ███ █████ ███████ ███████████

Incorrect. Changes in the numbers of anchovies don't tell us anything about changes in whether the anchovies are safe to eat.

P. australis cannot ███████ ██ █████ ███████ ██ ████████ ████ ████ ███ ███████ ███████████ ██████████ ██ ██████ ████ █████ ████ ████████ █████ ██████████

Incorrect. If you picked (E), maybe you thought that the drop in P. australis numbers this year indicates that there is less domoic acid in the water. But all we know is that P. australis numbers are back to normal, not that they are no longer there in large numbers. For all we know, normal levels of P. australis could still be a "large number," which would mean there is still a significant quantity of domoic acid in the water. In that case, we would need another explanation for why the anchovies became unusually tainted with domoic acid last year.

11%

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