Logical Reasoning

PT138 · S3 · Q13 The size of northern fur seals

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The size of northern fur seals provides a reliable indication of their population levels—the smaller the average body size of seals in a population, the larger the population.

Statements

Volume Dial (the more x, the more y) The size of northern fur seals is a good indicator of their population levels:

The smaller the size, the larger the population.

Over an 800 year period, the average body size did not vary significantly.

Evaluate

By applying our Volume Dial relationship to this provided fact, we should be able to derive the idea that

Over this 800 year period, the average population size of seals did not vary significantly.

Goal

Since there are only two claims, and the overlapping concept is "body size", we're being sent a strong message that we're supposed to apply this rule to this fact.

So let's look for an answer saying or reinforcing the idea that .

13.

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

  1. During the 800-year period studied,

    Speculates Causal Backstory

    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% picked this

  2. The body size of northern

    Out of Scope: 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% picked this

  3. Before the 800-year period studied,

    Out of Scope

    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% picked this

  4. Native peoples in North America

    Speculates Causal Backstory

    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% picked this

  5. Correct

    Hunting by Native peoples in

    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% picked this

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