Q5 - If Earth's population...

[sbkress]

This question continues to perplex me. I can certainly see how "This would, however, be a temporary solution..." could be construed as the conclusion. In fact, it seems the most conclusive sentence in the stimulus. But the the passage seems concerned with the proposed solution (emigration to Mars) only insofar as it wishes to discount this as any reason to doubt the inevitable overcrowding of the earth. This led me to answer choice "B." Any clarification would be appreciated.

[sumukh09]

I think we can justify an elimination of B) just by recognizing that there's nothing that parallel's what B is saying. You might have thought that B) is implied given the way the argument in the stimulus presents itself, but for an identify the conclusion question I think our goal is stick with what's given to us and avoid deriving implications from the information. I'll concede you can easily argue that answer choice B) is what the stimulus is getting at, but it never directly says this anywhere, so we want to be cautious when ascribing merit to an answer choice that isn't clearly stated in the stimulus. Had this been a most strongly support question, a strong case could be made for B), but since this an ID the conclusion question, it's probably best we stick with what we've got in the stimulus.

Also, I think the argument is more geared along the lines of discounting the solution proposed by those asserting overcrowding probably won't be a problem, rather than about the problem itself.

[jan]

agreeing with the post above, I also think that the argument is geared towards discrediting one of the solutions that some people have raised. The argument doesn't talk about any other solutions and thus does not affirmatively say that no possible way out of the growing population problem exist.

[christine.defenbaugh]

Excellent points from both withjc_4ev and sumukh09!

Let's break this argument down from top to bottom.

First, the author gives us some background information about the overcrowding on Earth that will result if the population continues to grow geometrically. Then, he introduces what "some people have claimed" - those language clues strongly indicate he's about to tell us why he disagrees with this colonization solution! We get his disagreement next: it's only temporary! And he follows up with his evidence for that disagreement: if the population grew geometrically and if we colonized Mars, then we'd eventually have the same overcrowding, just later.

So, the core of the argument is this:

PREMISE: If geometric population increase and if colonize Mars, we'd have overcrowding by 2530 instead of 2500
CONCLUSION: Colonization is a temporary solution at best.

Answers (A), (C), and (E) all accurately reflect something directly stated in the argument.

(A) is the background information the author starts the argument laying out
(C) is the premise that the author uses to support the conclusion
(E) perfectly reflects the conclusion of the argument! This is our answer!

Now, let's take a closer look at (B) and (D). Remember that the entire argument is under the umbrella of "IF the population continues to grow geometrically". The author NEVER claims that it will continue to grow geometrically - maybe it will slow down at some point, or stop altogether, or reverse! Instead, the author is suggesting what will happen if it does.

Both (B) and (D) say that the population will continue to grow geometrically! But we don't know that!

withjc_4ev also makes the excellent point that just because the author is discrediting THIS solution to overcrowding (colonization), that does not necessarily mean that he thinks that ALL solutions are worthless - maybe there's some other solution he thinks would be awesome. So we cannot assume that he thinks the population problem will definitely persist - just that colonization won't fix it permanently.

(B) would not be a valid answer to a Most Strongly Supported question either, for both of these reasons: 1) we don't know that geometric population increases will continue and 2) we don't know that the author doesn't believe in some other potential solution.

Watch out for slipped in assumptions in wrong answers on Identify the Conclusion questions! You want the answer choice that is tightly fit to the directly stated conclusion of the argument!

I hope this helps clear things up a bit!