Q11 - Lydia: Red squirrels are known

[LSAT-Chang]

Hello!
I was really tempted by answer choice (C) because then it would make it more likely that the squirrels are after the sugar and not something else since the sugar maples are tapped more frequently than others whose sap has a "lower concentration of sugar." Does this make sense??

[chike_eze]

Hello!
I was really tempted by answer choice (C) because then it would make it more likely that the squirrels are after the sugar and not something else since the sugar maples are tapped more frequently than others whose sap has a "lower concentration of sugar." Does this make sense??

(C) doesn't necessarily dispute the claim that the squirrels consume the sap for some reason other than for sugar (Galina's argument). For all we know, the sap in other trees may lack something that is present in the sap of maple trees. The dispute is whether the squirrels consume maple tree sap (in particular) for the sugar or for something else.

If you look at it this way, then whether squirrels tap other trees (or not) is irrelevant.

(D) Undermines Galina's argument by showing how her main premise combined with the evidence that "the squirrels leave the sap until much of the water has evaporated" could still support Lydia's argument.

> If the sugar in the sap is not concentrated enough, and the squirrels come back after it is concentrated, then it's more likely that they are after the sugar

[LSAT-Chang]

Thanks for the great explanation Chike. I definitely made my own assumptions with answer choice (C) and you are right in that the red squirrels not tapping trees other than sugar maples as much as the sugar maples doesn't provide a strong enough evidence to support the idea that the red squirrels are actually going for SUGAR.

[giladedelman]

Great analysis, guys! It seems with (C), this still leaves the fact that sugar maple sap itself has a low concentration of sugar, so the question remains: why do squirrels dig for it?

Good stuff.

[DanielNaydenov]

> If the sugar in the sap is not concentrated enough, and the squirrels come back after it is concentrated, then it's more likely that they are after the sugar

This right here, is the key to the question. It stumped me a bit as well, but I realized that the term CONCENTRATION was of great importance. If the water evaporated, then the squirrels would not have to drink so much darn sap, as Galina says, in order to get "a significant amount of sugar."

[WaltGrace1983]

This is basically a correlation/causation issue.

Lydia says: Sap is basically just water and sugar. They would have an easier time getting water elsewhere. Therefore, squirrels are probably after sugar.

Galina says: Sugar concentration is low that the squirrels would need to get an enormous amount of sap just to get a small amount of sugar. Therefore, squirrels are probably not after sugar.

My first thought was that maybe there was something going on with this "enormous amount" discussion. "Enormous" is a pretty vague term and maybe the squirrels do drink a lot of sap. However, the problem is that this would still not show why they are drinking the sap. The whole stimulus is about why so we should focus on that.

(A) But why? Maybe they are not after the high concentration of sugar but something else. Also, this doesn't have much to do with trees and sap.

(B) But why? WHY do they make holes? Is it for sugar or water of what?

(C) Tempting! Initially picked this one. The (incorrect) line of thoughts would be, "well if they don't tap the trees with a lower concentration of sugar as often, they maybe they actually ARE going for the sugar." This may weaken if we assume something about why they are tapping the trees less frequently. Maybe the trees' sap is poisonous!

(D) Yea! So we know that sap is basically (water) and (sugar). If ~(water), then what can they possibly be going after? That's right, (sugar."

(E) Do they tap the trees? Why?