When soil is plowed in the spring,

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct64% picked this

   Fewer pigweed plants will grow in the field if it is plowed only at night than if it

   Why this is right

   This answer plays off the Causal Difference-Maker said in the final sentence: if the seeds don't have that special recipe of Prolonged Darkness followed by Sunlight Exposure, they don't germinate. So plowing during the day would expose those seeds to sunlight, sparking their germination. Plowing during the night would churn up all those seeds, but they wouldn't get any exposure to sunlight, so their receptors wouldn't trigger germination. Since a plant needs to germinate in order to grow (they're counting on us to have this common knowledge), you'd get more plants if you plow during the day than if you plow at night.

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

   64%
2. B

   Opposite3% picked this

   Fewer pigweed plants will grow in the field if it is plowed at all than if it is

   The syntax of this one is not agreeing with me. I just don't understand how that's grammatically or logically acceptable. It sounds like it's comparing a situation in which we plow "at least once, day or night" to a situation in which we plow "at night, if ever". We know from our thinking through (A) that if this field is plowed at night, the seeds won't be exposed to sunlight, so the receptors won't trigger germination, and no pigweed will grow. So since we know that none of them will grow if plowed only at night, then it's impossible for any situation to have fewer pigweed plants than zero.

   3%
3. C

   Unknown Comparison7% picked this

   Fewer pigweed plants will grow in the field if it is plowed just before sunrise than if it

   Which has more sunlight: the pinkish aurora before sunrise, or the pinkish hues around dusk? Naturally, we don't know and they're probably pretty similar, since they're opposite functions of each other. So we can't say that just before sunrise is dimmer than just after sunset, and the only way to justify fewer/greater pigweed plants is to establish less/more exposure to direct sunlight.

   7%
4. D

   Too Strong: unless24% picked this

   The pigweed seeds that are churned up to the surface of the soil during the plowing will not geminate unless they are redeposited

   We only have one rule provided that allows us to say "therefore, won't germinate", and that's the idea that "they weren't in prolonged darkness followed by exposure to sunlight". We were told that the seeds are redeposited beneath the surface, not that they need to be redeposited.

   24%
5. E

   Contradicted2% picked this

   All of the pigweed seeds that are already on the surface of the soil before the field

   The seeds that are already on the surface haven't had the required prolonged darkness that the seeds that were buried all winter had. Without the "long darkness + sunlight exposure" cocktail, the seeds don't germinate.

   2%