LR Question 8 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: The population of a certain wildflower is so small that the species…
QUESTION TYPE: Necessary Assumption
CONCLUSION: The daisy should be introduced to cross-breed with the wildflower.
REASONING: The wildflower will soon become extinct. The cross-breed will be very different from the wildflower but at least this plans allows us to prevent total loss of the wildflower.
ANALYSIS: The goal is to keep the wildflower alive for a long time in its hybrid form. If the hybrid can’t reproduce(!) (answer choice D) then the hybrid and the wildflower will both soon die.
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- Even if the wildflower can reproduce by another mechanism, it is still going extinct because it’s population is too small.
- This isn’t necessary, as long as the daisy can survive in the wildflower’s range.
- This isn’t necessary. We only need to know that the wildflower hybrid can survive within its current range.
- CORRECT. If the hybrids can’t reproduce, then both the wildflower and the hybrid will soon die out.
- We only need to know that the domesticated daisy can breed with the wildflower. It doesn’t have to breed with other daisies.
More Resources for Necessary Assumption Questions
- Negations Article: Learn about negations on the LSAT.
- Conditional Reasoning Article: Learn about conditional statements.
- Negations Drill: Practice your negation skills.
- LR Diagrams Guide: Learn how to draw LR diagrams.
- Intro to Conditional Reasoning: Learn conditional reasoning basics.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Necessary Assumption questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers necessary assumption questions.
Why is D correct? Who cares if it will EVENTUALLY due out? The point in the stimulus is that we want to prevent a TOTAL LOSS, a preventing a total loss absolutely does not require the hybrids to reproduce. All we need the the cross-pollination to work and we get our result of a “non-total loss.”
If the hybrids can’t reproduce, then there’s no way the hybrids can keep the species alive. They’ll die within a generation! Even an eventual die-out would wreck the argument, but D actually shows the death of the species would occur pretty quickly.
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.
I just want to thank you for all of these explanations. I try to do them by myself, but sometimes I get stuck. Your explanations are clear, especially for why an answer is incorrect, and have allowed me to significantly improve my LR understanding. Thank you!