Really difficult question in my opinion. How is the answer B when lines 43-47 say that social status is the only variable that correlates with strip width when other variables are held constant?
OOH, is it because it says that the dummies themselves varied within each OTHER in variables other than breast-width? I guess that makes sense.
I can see how A is wrong and how D is wrong, even E because it doesn't matter that they did not actually attack the dummy but was still rather aggressive (maybe their strip width wasn't big enough or small enough? who knows why they never attacked).
What about C? How is that incorrect? I put down E myself but yeah....
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Atticus Finch
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Re: Q17
This is another example of a subtle causation issue (I've gone into greater depth discussing correlation vs causation in another response to one of your questions, but please follow up if you want to discuss the topic more specifically relative to this problem).
In the last paragraph -- the evidence is that real bird reacted differently to dummie with broader breast stripe. The conclusion is that this breast stripe is used for status signaling.
It's very helpful to remember that on the LSAT correlation can never prove causation, and any time you see the issue you should immediately think about other factors that could have been involved. Perhaps the bird dummie with the wider stripe happened to be four times the size of the other dummies and screamed in Russian! Of course, you don't have to imagine such scenarios -- what is important is that you recognize that the author is using correlation to try to justify a claim about causation, and this will always be a flaw on the LSAT.
In light of the issue, (B) makes a whole lot of sense, because it opens up other possibilities in terms of causation.
(C) is tempting, especially in light of the other things mentioned in the passage, but whether the birds are juvenile or not actually has no impact on this particular experiment -- even if the birds were juvenile, it wouldn't change the fact that we are testing them vs. dummies that have a narrower breast stripe or a wider breast stripe relative to that bird.
Hope that is helpful -- and sorry for the delayed response! (I was away from work for a few days). Please feel free to follow up if you have any further questions.
In the last paragraph -- the evidence is that real bird reacted differently to dummie with broader breast stripe. The conclusion is that this breast stripe is used for status signaling.
It's very helpful to remember that on the LSAT correlation can never prove causation, and any time you see the issue you should immediately think about other factors that could have been involved. Perhaps the bird dummie with the wider stripe happened to be four times the size of the other dummies and screamed in Russian! Of course, you don't have to imagine such scenarios -- what is important is that you recognize that the author is using correlation to try to justify a claim about causation, and this will always be a flaw on the LSAT.
In light of the issue, (B) makes a whole lot of sense, because it opens up other possibilities in terms of causation.
(C) is tempting, especially in light of the other things mentioned in the passage, but whether the birds are juvenile or not actually has no impact on this particular experiment -- even if the birds were juvenile, it wouldn't change the fact that we are testing them vs. dummies that have a narrower breast stripe or a wider breast stripe relative to that bird.
Hope that is helpful -- and sorry for the delayed response! (I was away from work for a few days). Please feel free to follow up if you have any further questions.
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