Q1 - In the bodies of reptiles

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Industrial by-products have entered the swamp's ecosystem.
Evidence: Some of the swamp's alligators had telltale developmental abnormalities, the type that guarantee elevated hormonal activity. And some industrial by-products cause elevated hormonal activity.

Answer Anticipation:
The author establishes that the funky gators in this swamp definitely have elevated hormonal activity. But just because some industrial by-products COULD be the cause of such elevated hormonal activity doesn't mean we should just accept that they ARE the cause. We can fight back against this author by saying, "Maybe there's some OTHER reason the gators have elevated hormonal activity".

Correct Answer:
B

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Out of scope, since we are trying to come up with an alternative explanation for abnormalities that DO result from elevated hormonal activity.

(B) This looks good. We were looking for an answer that said "something else might be causing the elevated hormonal activity".

(C) This wouldn't hurt the argument, since the food the alligators ate is presumably part of the swamp's ecosystem, so this would merely be agreeing with the conclusion.

(D) We don't need to be convinced that OTHER reptiles have the same abnormalities. The fact that some alligators DO have these abnormalities is enough to convince us that elevated hormonal activity is taking place. We're only concerned with what is causing that elevated hormonal activity.

(E) Famous Flaw! The alligators, since they are developmentally AB-normal are, by definition, unlikely to be representative of normal alligators. But the author is not going from a premise about specific gators to a conclusion about gators in general. The author is going from a premise about messed up gators to a conclusion about what's causing those specific gators to be messed up. So there's no sampling happening whatsoever, because we're not extrapolating.

Takeaway/Pattern: This is a pretty generic "Author thinks X is caused by Y. We have to raise the possibility that something else might be causing X" type argument + answer. The hardest part is that we need to pick up on the conditional logic of "ONLY WITH" in the second sentence. This tells us that "abnormal development --> elevated hormonal activity". Since we know some gators have abnormal development, we KNOW they have elevated hormonal activity. We just can't be sure why they do.

#officialexplanation

[851869412]

I know B is correct, but I am not 100% sure why A or C is not correct.

For (A), we know elevated hormonal activity is the only cause of abnormal development of certain body parts, but we do not know whether the telltale belongs to the "certain body parts" . Therefore, (A) seems correct.

For (C), is it possible that the alligators usually live in the swamp but hunt for food in other places? I know this explanation sounds a little bit weird, but when I did this section the first time, I really thought about that possibility and then choose (C).

[Emmeline Ndongue]

I know B is correct, but I am not 100% sure why A or C is not correct.

For (A), we know elevated hormonal activity is the only cause of abnormal development of certain body parts, but we do not know whether the telltale belongs to the "certain body parts" . Therefore, (A) seems correct.

For (C), is it possible that the alligators usually live in the swamp but hunt for food in other places? I know this explanation sounds a little bit weird, but when I did this section the first time, I really thought about that possibility and then choose (C).

for (A), I couldn't argue with that detail you mentioned, and I don't know how to solve that kind of problem either. If we assume the "telltale" was one of the certain body parts, this wouldn't allow the premise "abnormal development activity --> elevated hormonal activity" to hold. Since we accept the premise to be correct, we eliminate this.

for (C), again if we ignore that detail of "certain body parts", we know there must have been the presence of elevated hormonal activity. Knowing that some by prod causes elevated hormonal activity doesn't mean the presence of elevated hormonal activity guarantees the presence of by prod. The answer is pointing to the presence of by prod. and even if they hunted those somewhere, the by prod. enter the eco system still in alligator'S stomach, and this wouldn't harm the argument

[NatalieC259]

Hi! I understand why B is the correct answer but while I was taking the test, I narrowed it down to B + E (E because I didn't quite understand the language). Is there any sample question from a previous test where the Famous Flaw happened to be the correct answer so that I can better understand when that answer does apply?

Thanks so much!

[Laura Damone]

Sure thing! Check out Sampling Flaws of all sorts (not just Unrepresentative Sample) in these questions, expressed as a series of numbers: PrepTest # - Section # - Question #
55 -1-23
55 -3-9
55 -3-14
56 -2-1
56 -2-3

Good luck!