Mature white pines intercept almost

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct61% picked this

   the ages of the trees in the stand do not differ from each other by much more than the length of time it takes

   Why this is right

   Let's say it takes 50 years for a white pine to be fully mature. Once it's fully mature, there aren't any baby white pines growing in its shade. This answer is saying all these trees must have started growing within the same 50-100 years or so. Since this is a dense stand of white pines, these white pines are pretty packed together. If they had grown at vastly different times, it would have required that wherever there will still gaps, a new baby white pine was able to grow in the shade of the mature white pines and fill that gap in. But we were explicitly told that can't happen. You can't have a sparse collection of white pines grow to maturity and THEN have some new white pines grow in their shade, filling in the gaps until it's a dense stand of trees, since white pines don't grow in the shade of white pines. Thus, in order to get a bunch of them growing near each other, they'd have to all be growing up more or less together. Otherwise, the first ones that reached maturity would start to block out sunlight and impede any other nearby ones from growing to maturity.

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

   61%
2. B

   Out of Scope: cleared land9% picked this

   the land on which the stand is now growing had been cleared of all trees at the time when the first of

   We have no reason to say that the land had been cleared of all trees when the first one started growing. It's entirely possible that other types of trees are compatible growing in the shade of white pines. We only know that white pines can't grow near white pines.

   9%
3. C

   Out of Scope: predicting (will soon)25% picked this

   competition among the trees in the stand for sunlight will soon result in some trees’ dying and the

   We only know that mature and baby/growing trees don't coexist. It's possible that mature white pines coexist. Thus, we have no grounds for guessing that some of them will soon start dying.

   25%
4. D

   Too Strong2% picked this

   other species of trees will soon begin to colonize the stand, eventually replacing all of

   Too Strong: replacing all Out of Scope: other species We never learned anything about other species, and we have no grounds to support the extreme prediction that these mystery trees will eventually replace 100% of the white pines.

   2%
5. E

   Too Strong: any, solely5% picked this

   any differences in the heights of the trees in the stand are attributable solely to differences in the

   It's possible that some of these trees get better sunlight, or are hit by wind differently, or are used by animals differently, or were hit by lightning, etc. There's no way for us to support the extreme claim that every single difference in height is solely due to age.

   5%