Reading ComprehensionDifficulty: Medium

PT124 S4 P4 Q26 Explanation

Cyclamen Mites

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

TopicsStrengthenScience

Keep going in LSAT Lab

  • Save & drill this skill — build targeted practice sets from questions like this one

  • Video walkthroughs — watch every question solved step by step

  • 81 official LSATs — as questions, timed sections & full-length tests

Start practicing free

Free to start

Full official LSAT questions are available through LawHub. This page provides LSAT Lab's explanation, strategy, and review tools without republishing the full official question.

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

Strengthen

Your task

Find the choice that makes the argument's conclusion more likely to be true.

Common trap

Answers that are consistent with the argument but add no real support, or that strengthen a claim the argument doesn't make.

Winning move

Locate the gap between evidence and conclusion, then pick the choice that closes it.

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

The question
26.

Which one of the following would, if true, most strengthen the author’s position regarding the practical applicability of the information about predatory mites

Answer choices

  1. No Impact6% picked this

    The individual Typhlodromus mites that have the longest reproductive life spans typically also lay the greatest number

    This is just saying that individual Typhlodromus who lay eggs for the longest time also lay the most eggs per day. Cool. Some Typhlodromus are super fertile. We only really care what's happening with the Typhlodromus population writ large, which is that is can reproduce fast enough to keep up with the prey but also stops reproducing when the prey is away.

  2. No Impact11% picked this

    The insecticides that are typically used for mite control on strawberry plants kill both predatory and

    If this were saying something bad about insecticides that wouldn't be true about predator mites, it could maybe boost the idea of using predator mites, but this just says that insecticides usually kill all types of mites. That's not a bad thing, if you want your strawberries mite-free.

  3. No Impact5% picked this

    In areas in which strawberry plants become infested by cyclamen mites, winters tend to be

    We don't care about the particular nuances of winters where cyclamens live. We know that their populations decline in the winter, and in response Typhlodromus population also declines.

  4. No Impact / Weak3% picked this

    Typhlodromus are sometimes preyed upon by another species of mites that is highly

    The "sometimes" makes this instantly unlikely as a correct answer. Parathion is pretty irrelevant to the question stem because it only gets rid of the predator mites. What we're really trying to judge in this question is, "In order to get rid of a pesky mite, should we use a predator mite or a pesticide designed to get rid of the pesky mite?"

  5. Correct75% picked this

    Typhlodromus easily tolerate the same range of climatic conditions that strawberry

    Why this is right

    Another good thing that makes Typhlodromus a successful solution to controlling cyclamen mites. They can be found wherever strawberry plants can be found. Nice strong language, they "easily" tolerate the same range of climate.

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

Continue the review in LSAT Lab

Save this question, watch the video walkthrough, and drill similar questions in your LSAT Lab account.

Save and practice this skill
LSAT Lab

Turn this review into a targeted study plan.

Save this question, drill more like it, watch the video walkthrough, and track your progress in your LSAT Lab account.

Start practicing free