A commercial insect trap consists

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct59% picked this

   In households where the traps have been used regularly, the proportion of insect pests that have a natural aversion to eating glucose

   Why this is right

   This supplies an Alternate Explanation for why the traps are less effective. The pests haven't evolved a tolerance for the poison (pesticide) inside the trap. They've just evolved an aversion to the glucose that is supposed to be baiting them to come inside. So the real reason the traps aren't effective any more is not that the pests are eating the poison but not dying from it; it's that they aren't even going inside the traps and eating the glucose/poison combo.

   Skill tested: Weaken · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   59%
2. B

   Strengthens2% picked this

   Even when only a few individuals out of an entire generation of insects survive the effects of a pesticide, the offspring of those individuals

   This increases the plausibility of the Author's Explanation by attesting to the fact that offspring of parents who survived a bout with the pesticide have usually developed a resistance to that pesticide.

   2%
3. C

   Strengthens12% picked this

   After eating glucose mixed with the pesticide, insects that live in households that do not use the trap tend to die in greater numbers

   This provides the classic "No Cause, No Effect" plausibility strengthener. Insects that live in houses that do not use the trap (i.e insects that have not had a chance to develop resistance over successive generations) are more vulnerable to dying from the pesticide. This makes it seem like "living in the house with these traps" is the causal difference-maker that accounts for the "less dying from these traps", which helps support the author's story.

   12%
4. D

   Strengthens22% picked this

   After the manufacturer of the traps increased the concentration of the pesticide used in the traps, the traps were no more effective in eliminating

   This rules out the possibility that the real reason the traps are failing these days is that the manufacturer changed the formula and made it less toxic. And it strengthens the plausibility of the author's notion that the pests have developed resistance to the pesticide if we learn that even when the insects ingest a higher concentration of the poison, they're still not dying.

   22%
5. E

   No Impact5% picked this

   The kind of glucose used to bait the traps is one of several different kinds of

   We don't really care whether this is natural or synthetic glucose. We would only care if they had changed the type of glucose used (because that could suggest an alternate explanation for why the traps aren't as effective now -- maybe the insects are not attracted to the new glucose).

   5%