Bird watcher: The decrease

Answer choices

1. A

   Weakens2% picked this

   Mourning doves were recently designated a migratory game species, meaning that they can

   This provides an Alternate Explanation. It's suggesting, "the doves aren't decreasing in population because they're losing habitat; it's because they're getting hunted".

   2%
2. B

   Correct74% picked this

   The trees in the nearby orchards were the only type of trees in the area attractive

   Why this is right

   We love how strong (i.e. impactful) this answer is with the only. If the trees in these orchards are their only eligible nesting site, then that adds a lot of plausibility to the author's story that loss of habitat (caused by the installation of overhead sprinklers at the orchard) is the reason for the mourning-dove's declining population in the area. According to this answer, there is no other available habitat. We know the doves were previously using the orchards, and now that they can't, there's nowhere in the area for them to live.

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

   74%
3. C

   No Impact19% picked this

   Blue jays that had nested in the orchards also ceased doing so after the

   This would sound like a More Cause, More Effect strengthener (i.e. provides more data points of cause/effect going hand in hand), if we were trying to strengthen the idea that "the sprinklers caused the doves to leave the orchard". But we already accept that the sprinklers caused the doves to leave the orchard. What we're analyzing in this question is whether "leaving the orchard, because of the sprinklers, is the reason that the doves have started to leave the area (the overall city/region)" If this answer choice said that "blue jays that had nested in the orchards are also decreasing in population in the area since the sprinklers were installed", that would be a strengthener.

   19%
4. D

   Too Weak4% picked this

   Many residents of the area fill their bird feeders with canola or wheat, which are appropriate seeds

   "Many" and "appropriate" really water down the impact of this. If residents of the area are providing mourning doves with food, then that would rule out the idea that mourning doves are leaving the area because the food source has dried up. But, the fact that "many (at least 10) residents are filling their bird feeders with appropriate seeds" isn't taking us that close to the idea we'd want of, "the mourning doves don't have to worry about finding food in this area". Also, there's no way in a head-to-head between this answer and the correct answer that we could say the effect this has (of slightly ruling out the possibility that mourning doves can't find food) beats the effect the correct answer has (saying that orchards were the only possible habitat in the area).

   4%
5. E

   Too Weak1% picked this

   Mourning doves often nest in fruit

   "Often" is not that impressive a quantifier to begin with (it could still be less than 50% of the time). And we already knew that some mourning-doves nest in fruit trees, because trees at orchards are by definition fruit trees, I believe. So this adds almost nothing to the facts we already had.

   1%