Logical Reasoning

PT13 · S2 · Q6 The distance that animals travel

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The distance that animals travel each day and the size of the groups in which they live are highly correlated with their diets.

Facts

Correlations

daily distance traveled || diet size of group they live in || diet

Causal (depends in large part on)

size / shape of teeth and face >> diet

Anticipate

Since the vast majority of Inference questions involve synthesizing multiple claims that have some overlapping ingredient, it feels like this paragraph is set up to combine sentence 1 and sentence 2, via the overlapping concept of "diet".

Since the size/shape of teeth and face have a large part in determining an animals diet, and since diet correlates strongly with how far the animal travels each day and how big a group they live in, we could probably say that

Goal

Look for the most provable claim, probably connecting size/shape of teeth and face to the daily distance traveled, the group size, or both.

6.

The statements above provide the most support for which one of the following?

  1. Animals that eat meat travel

    Unsupported

    The stimulus says travel and group size are correlated with diet, but it never tells us which way meat eaters fall — bigger or smaller groups, longer or shorter ranges. This answer commits to a specific direction (meat eaters in smaller groups, smaller ranges) that the stimulus doesn't support.

    4% picked this

  2. Animals that have varied diets

    Unsupported

    The stimulus says nothing about how varied an animal's diet is, or about body size and robustness. It only links diet to travel distance and group size. This answer brings in a new variable (diet variety) and a new outcome (body size/robustness) that the stimulus never connects.

    5% picked this

  3. When individual herd animals lose

    Unsupported

    This is a very specific claim about where an animal is positioned in a herd (totally out of scope) when a herd animal loses teeth. The stimulus says daily travel distance and group size are correlated with diet, not anything about position within a herd, and not anything about what happens when an individual loses teeth. The answer is far too specific for what the stimulus supports.

    1% picked this

  4. Information about the size and

    Too Strong

    "Is all that is needed to identify the species" — that's a much stronger claim than the stimulus supports. The stimulus says diet depends "in large part" on teeth and face, and travel and group size are "correlated with" diet. None of that gets us to the extreme claim that "all you need" is size/shape of face and you instantly know the species.

    2% picked this

  5. Correct

    Information about the size and

    Why this is right

    Wow. What a weird surprising answer. The idea of "herd animal" seems very out of scope at first. This is why we say that on Most Supported you rarely can predict the correct answer; you can just predict what connection(s) you'll be rewarded for having made. We found a connection between size/shape of teeth face and the daily distance traveled / size of the group. Is is rewarding that inference, by saying, "If you saw the size/shape of the animal's teeth and face, that would largely tell you its diet, which would correlated strongly with how far they travel each day and the size of the group they're in." HERD animals, by definition, are in a big ol' group. Herding together means to gather as a group. So if teeth/face info helped us determine diet, and diet told us that this animal likely lived in a big group, then we would have a good guess that the animal was "likely" a herd animal.

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

    88% picked this

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