LR Question 25 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: New evidence indicates that recent property development…
QUESTION TYPE: Strengthen
CONCLUSION: Evidence indicates that a certain property development hasn’t hurt wildlife.
REASONING: Wildlife numbers have increased, and the park can support them.
ANALYSIS: This argument sound pretty good, so you have to ask yourself: “How could this evidence not lead to this conclusion?” Imagining an actual wildlife reserve. What would you look for in a successful reserve? You’d probably want to see lots of animals, and many different types of species.
The stimulus only mentions the number of animals increased. What if the development has killed off some species? Maybe the park is now only full of animals that thrive near humans, such as raccoons, squirrels and pigeons. Eww. You can strengthen the argument by eliminating this possibility.
It’s perfectly ok to use outside knowledge this way. We’re just using it to form guesses. The wrong way to use outside knowledge is to assume something has to be true. But thinking something might be true lets you answer many questions quickly.
___________
- CORRECT. This shows that species diversity hasn’t declined. If all the animals were raccoons, then the argument would not be persuasive. This answer eliminates that possibility.
- It’s not clear how this affects the argument. If the previous survey was also taken in summer, then this has no effect. If the previous survey was taken in another season, then the argument is slightly weaker since the recent survey was biased. (Though the survey measured species numbers. The impact of diversity isn’t clear.)
- The stimulus says the park currently is capable of supporting the wildlife it contains, so it doesn’t matter that it couldn’t have done so a decade ago.
- This weakens the argument. Maybe the old techniques found 10% of animals, and now we found 90%. The “increase” is just a mirage. There could even be fewer animals.
- The conclusion is only about how animal life is doing. Plants are nice, but they don’t matter here.
Recap: The question begins with “New evidence indicates that recent property development”. It is a Strengthen question. To practice more Strengthen questions, have a look at the LSAT Questions by Type page.
More Resources for Strengthen Questions
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Strengthen questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers strengthen questions.
I got this right without having to conjure the needlessly hurtful rakounphobia in this explanation. You guys might’ve have as well as called them trashpandas.
Anyway in all seriousness – is this a common concept I should keep in mind for the future? The concept being that a well-being of an ecosystem/wildlife is determined in two ways – the NUMBER of total animals in the designated area and the number of SPECIES in the designated area? Or am I overthinking it? Does well-being of an ecosystem just mean diversity (with high numbers of each species just being a given for wellness)
The equation of the increase in wildlife in the park with the health of the park (or, more specifically, the fact that the wildlife has not been “adversely affected”) is very specific to this stimulus. In other words, this isn’t a concept I would apply to other stimuluses or questions unless there was also a similar equation within the letter of the stimulus.
As a general note, you shouldn’t be carrying concepts like these into your reading of other LSAT questions. Rather, you should be focusing on very closely reading each stimulus, and not bringing in outside assumptions or equations (like the one above), unless they’re common sense assumptions.
I think like B, D might also have no effect on the argument. Because we don’t know when the most recent techniques replaced the older techniques, it may cover both surveys. And in this case, technique improvement is not a factor.
That’s fair to say. We don’t really know how the answer choice is defining “most recent” — perhaps that time period could span past a decade ago.
I was confused by the words “on the contrary” because I took it to mean that the development has adversely affected wildlife. Why is “on the contrary” used here and what exactly does it mean?
“On the contrary” is referring to the position that development bordering a national park has adversely affected the park’s wildlife. The entire argument is response against the position that development bordering a national park has adversely affected. “On the contrary” is a little confusing because when you read it, it’s not entirely clear what’s going on in the argument yet so naturally you might think on the contrary is disagreeing with just the line before it.
-Reply from LSAT Tutor, Morgan Barrett
I picked (C). I thought the stimulus implied that the development was responsible for the new support (RESOURCES), and if you had new wildlife coming in from different areas that would not have been supported unless they had those resources, than the development would seem like a direct cause for that.
On my second look, I realized that the stimulus never stated that at all. I’m guessing I should have just examined the survey issue more than I did.
Yes, you’re right to point out that there would need to be very clear support within the stimulus to make the connection between the development and increased resources. One good way to avoid making the same kind of mistake in future practice tests is to ensure that when you’re deciding between the last 2-3 best answer choices in a given question, that there is strong support within the stimulus to support/exclude that answer choice (though, also keep in mind that LSAC also expects you to be able to make common sense inferences that may not be explicit in the stimulus/RC passage.)