Reading ComprehensionDifficulty: Hard

PT124 S4 P4 Q24 Explanation

Cyclamen Mites

A free, expert breakdown of this official LSAT Reading Comprehension question.

TopicsAuthor OpinionScience

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Passage

Sometimes there is no more effective means of controlling an agricultural pest than giving free rein to its natural predators. A case in point is the cyclamen mite, a pest whose population can be effectively controlled by a predatory mite of the genus Typhlodromus. Cyclamen mites infest strawberry plants; they typically establish year, rapidly subdue the cyclamen mite populations, and keep them from reaching significantly damaging levels.

Typhlodromus owes its effectiveness as a predator to several factors in addition to its voracious appetite. Its population can increase as rapidly as that of its prey. Both species reproduce by parthenogenesis—a mode of reproduction in which unfertilized eggs develop into fertile females. Cyclamen mites lay three eggs per day over the the seasonal rises and falls of its prey, are common among predators that control prey populations.

Greenhouse experiments have verified the importance of Typhlodromus predation for keeping cyclamen mites in check. One group of strawberry plants was stocked with both predator and prey mites; a second group was kept predator-free by regular application of parathion, an insecticide that kills the predatory species but does not affect the cyclamen with Typhlodromus, but their infestation attained significantly damaging proportions on predator-free plants.

Applying parathion in this instance is a clear case in which using a pesticide would do far more harm than good to an agricultural enterprise. The results were similar in field plantings of strawberries, where cyclamen mites also reached damaging levels when predators were eliminated by parathion, but they did not attain were about 25 times more abundant in the absence of predators than in their presence.

What this question is testing

Author Opinion

Your task

Pin down exactly what the question asks about the passage — a detail, the author's view, the structure, or the main point — before looking at the choices.

Common trap

Answers that restate a true detail from the passage but don't answer the specific question being asked.

Winning move

Anticipate the answer in your own words from the passage, then find the choice that matches that prediction.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question
24.

It can be inferred from the passage that the author would be most likely to agree with which one of the following statements about the use of

Answer choices

  1. Opposite2% picked this

    If the use of predators to control cyclamen mite populations fails, then parathion should be used

    Parathion controls the predator population, not the cyclamen mites, so this advice would be silly.

  2. Out of Scope4% picked this

    Until the effects of the predators on beneficial insects that live in strawberry fields are assessed, such predators should be used with

    Out of Scope: "used with caution" Out of Scope: "beneficial insects" This would backpedal from the main point. Our author presents Typhlo as a case in point where there is no more effective means of controlling the cyclamen mite. We never hear the author raise any concern about whether Typhlo might damage "beneficial insects".

  3. Correct59% picked this

    Insecticides should be used to control certain pest populations in fields of crops only if the use of

    Why this is right

    We might not be in love with the "only if" formulation of this rule, but the contrapositive sounds a lot like the author's general sentiment: if the use of natural predators has proven adequate to control a certain pest population, then insecticides should not be used. The first sentence of the 4th paragraph would be our most direct support.

    Skill tested: Author Opinion · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

  4. Opposite5% picked this

    If an insecticide can effectively control pest populations as well as predator populations, then it should be used instead of

    It doesn't seem like our author is saying, "Ideally, pesticides .... but as a last resort, predator populations".

  5. Out of Scope: "harm the crops"30% picked this

    Predators generally control pest populations more effectively than pesticides because they do not harm the crops that

    We aren't sure whether Typhlo or pesticides harm the crops, so we can't make this comparison.

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