The size of northern fur seals

Answer choices

1. A

   Speculates Causal Backstory6% picked this

   During the 800-year period studied, seal hunting practices did not vary substantially between different groups of Native

   What we know is that population size of these seals didn't change much, while they were being hunted by Native peoples for 800 years. Is that because "the Native people didn't change their hunting practices that much"? Could be. But certainly doesn't have to be. It might be that the Native people changed their hunting practices a lot, but they always kept an eye on population size of these fur seals and aimed to keep it stable.

   6%
2. B

   Out of Scope: overall health2% picked this

   The body size of northern fur seals is not strongly correlated with the overall health

   Since the paragraph never mentions the "overall health" of the seals, we have no idea whether body size is or isn't correlated with overall health.

   2%
3. C

   Out of Scope1% picked this

   Before the 800-year period studied, the average body size of northern fur

   Out of Scope: before this period Too Strong: dramatically Since we only received information about this 800 year period, we can't say anything about whether body size or population size fluctuated at all, let alone dramatically in the period prior to this 800 years.

   1%
4. D

   Speculates Causal Backstory5% picked this

   Native peoples in North America made an effort to limit their hunting of northern fur seals in order to

   What we know is that population size of these seals didn't change much, while they were being hunted by Native peoples for 800 years. Is that because "the Native people made an effort to stabilize population size of the fur seals"? Could be. But certainly doesn't have to be. It might be also be that as the Native peoples increased their hunting of seals, one of the seals' other predators started to vanish from the ecosystem, so the net effect was a similar population size of seals.

   5%
5. E

   Correct86% picked this

   Hunting by Native peoples in North America did not significantly reduce the northern fur seal population over

   Why this is right

   This is the most neutral (albeit, disguised) restatement of the fact we inferred: "population size didn't change much over those 800 years". It isn't speculating a reason why. It's just factually saying, "Hunting by Native peoples didn't make a huge reduction in the seal population". We could similarly infer, "Asteroid impacts didn't make a huge reduction in the seal population" How could we infer that? We know that there wasn't a huge reduction in the seal population!

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

   86%