Forester: The great majority of

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct63% picked this

   Most of the world’s forests will lose at least some of their plant or animal species

   Why this is right

   We know that most of the world's forests are fragmented (per the 1st claim), and we know that fragmented forests do not retain their full complement of species, if they aren't regularly intervened in by resource managers. So putting those together we get this answer. Formally, this combines the Most claim at the beginning with the Conditional at the end. In essence, it's combining Most A's are B with B ? C to derive Most A's are C Showing how this works symbolically will involve making some purposeful decisions in how we write these ideas (there are multiple valid ways to represent some of these claims). Most [forests in the world] are [fragmented] If [fragmented forest], then [maintaining all species requires interventions] or alternatively, If [fragmented forest], then [if no intervention, lose some species] Thus, Most [forests in the world] are [lose some species if no intervention]

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

   63%
2. B

   Too Strong: most30% picked this

   Unless resource managers regularly intervene in most of the world’s remaining forests, many of the world’s most endangered

   We know that most remaining forests are fragmented. Within that subset of forests, we know are the last refuges for some of the world's most endangered species. Technically, that could be as little as one super-endangered species that has its last refuge in one of these fragmented forests. Furthermore, it may be that there are many super-endangered species that have their last refuge in a fragmented forest, but they could all have the same forest as their last hope (maybe there's a tropical forest in the Amazon that is the last refuge of like 50 super-endangered species). In short, we know more than 50% of the world's forests are fragmented, but we don't know what percent of those fragmented forests are the last refuge of an endangered species. It could be a very tiny number. Thus, it's not fair say, as this answer does, that "if there aren't regular interventions in most forests, that we'll lose many endangered species". There might be only about 5-10 fragmented forests that resource managers need to intervene in to protect all the super-endangered species.

   30%
3. C

   Unsupported Relationship Too Strong: loses any2% picked this

   A fragmented forest ecosystem cannot sustain itself in the long term if it loses any of its

   This is trying to draw a conditional relationship between two different sentences, but there were not multiple conditionals that would allow us to chain stuff together to derive any new conditional. This answer choice doesn't sound at all like common sense, because it's saying "if a fragmented forest loses even one plant or animal species, then it will not be able to sustain itself in the long term". It's crazy to think that every species in an ecosystem is that important to an ecosystem's long term ability to sustain itself.

   2%
4. D

   Trap2% picked this

   A complete, fully functioning forest ecosystem can always maintain its full complement of plant and animal species even

   Negated Logic Out of Scope: fully functioning The easiest way to get rid of this is simply to think, "We didn't receive any information about fully-functioning ecosystems. We only talked about ones that aren't fully functioning anymore." This answer is trying to bait us into illegally negating the final sentence. We were told, If a fragmented (no longer fully-functioning) forest, then requires regular interventions to maintain all species. This is trying to make us think, If not fragmented, (is fully-functioning), then doesn't require regular interventions to maintain all species.

   2%
5. E

   Too Strong3% picked this

   At present, resource managers intervene regularly in only some of the world’s

   Too Strong: only some Out of Scope: at present We don't have any information about what resource managers currently do or don't do. We're only told what the consequences would be if they don't intervene in fragmented forests.

   3%