Q21 - One method of dating

[kiwistory]

I've been having some real trouble trying to understand why the answer is D other than the process of elimination.

in the argument, the author notes that
"the more genetically similar two species are to each other, the more recently they diverged from a common ancestor"

answer D states that
"scientists have found that giant pandas are more similar genetically to bears than to raccoons"

what I don't understand is what qualifies the bears to be "more recently they diverged from a common ancestor" than the raccoons when understood along with the giant panda?
The prompt does say that the giant panda did divert from the "other bears" (which I interpreted as the original bears that diverted with the raccoons with the "common ancestor"). however that alone doesn't seem to justify that the panda and the bears are more similar than the raccoons, since raccoons and the panda share the same ancestor as well, and there's no specification that tells the bears diverted from the common ancestor later than the raccoons.

I apologize if this sounds confusing : (. This question has got my head spinning for quite a while now. Thanks in advance!

[bbirdwell]

When bears separated from raccoons, there were no pandas, because they had not yet diverged and become their own species.

See what I mean?

In the beginning, there were some things. 30-50 million years ago, they split into "bears" and "raccoons." Some time after that, red pandas separated from raccoons and coatis. Some time after that, "bears" split into "giant panda" and "other bears."

Don't make this harder than it needs to be! No other answer comes anywhere close, so simply playing the game of elimination should be enough to get you the answer. What do you know? Something about the relative closeness of bears, pandas, red pandas, and raccoons.

(A) "originally thought?" No evidence for this.
(B) "eight species?" Nope.
(C) "margin of just a few years?" Nope.
(E) "substantial consensus?" Not even close.

Just by ballparking, we can see that (D) is the only reasonable answer.

Does that help?

[AyakiK696]

I probably reread the stimulus like 5 times before just giving up and moving on to other questions.... What really confused me was the timeline that the stimulus presented. It said that bears and raccoons diverged 30-50 million years ago, and then red pandas separated from the ancestor of today's raccoons and coatis, and 10 million years BEFORE that giant pandas diverged from the other bears? So I guess in terms of the timeline, it's:

1. Bears and raccoons diverged, then
2. Giant pandas diverged from other bears, then
3. Red pandas separated from ancestor of raccoons

So how exactly do we get at the final answer, other than using process of elimination...? I was down to A and D and didn't catch on to the "originally thought" in A. It is simply because giant pandas diverged from other bears more recently than bears and raccoons diverged? I have no idea how the numbers tripped me up so much... Thank you!

[ohthatpatrick]

Inference questions are about finding two or more facts that we can combine in order to derive something else.

This almost always takes place using
CONDITIONAL
CAUSAL
QUANTITATIVE
or
COMPARISON/CONTRAST wording

The 2nd sentence gives us a rule we can apply:
From knowing genetic similarity, we can infer how recently two species diverged.
or
From knowing how recently two species diverged, we can infer genetic similarity.


Since (D) is trying to infer genetic similarity, let's ask ourselves, "did giant pandas diverge more recently from bears or from raccoons?"

The information moves forward in chronological order, and the last thing that happens (the most recent event) is that Giant pandas diverged from other bears.

Whatever was going on with raccoons happened at least 10 million years earlier.

Since we know that giant pandas diverged from other bears more recently than they did from raccoons, we can say that giant pandas have more genetic similarity to bears than to raccoons.

[XiangruC274]

https://ibb.co/1ZhBFh7
This diagram help me figure out the timeline. And I think it shows quite clear that only <D> is the right choice

[JoP960]

Inference questions are about finding two or more facts that we can combine in order to derive something else.

This almost always takes place using
CONDITIONAL
CAUSAL
QUANTITATIVE
or
COMPARISON/CONTRAST wording

The 2nd sentence gives us a rule we can apply:
From knowing genetic similarity, we can infer how recently two species diverged.
or
From knowing how recently two species diverged, we can infer genetic similarity.


Since (D) is trying to infer genetic similarity, let's ask ourselves, "did giant pandas diverge more recently from bears or from raccoons?"

The information moves forward in chronological order, and the last thing that happens (the most recent event) is that Giant pandas diverged from other bears.

Whatever was going on with raccoons happened at least 10 million years earlier.

Since we know that giant pandas diverged from other bears more recently than they did from raccoons, we can say that giant pandas have more genetic similarity to bears than to raccoons.

Hi! I still have a question. Why the "more A, more B" structure could also means "more B, more A"?
For example, more books you read, smarter you will be= smarter you are, more books you read? Why can't being smarter for another reason?
Thanks!

[JiayuZ630]

So we should think that giant pandas naturally belong to bears?