Reading ComprehensionDifficulty: Hard

PT153 S1 P2 Q13 ExplanationFish Farming

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

TopicsInferenceScience

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Passage

A recent worldwide decline of ocean fishery stocks has stimulated rapid growth in cultivated production of fish and shellfish, usually known as fish farming. Between 1987 and 1997, for example, global fish production from farming doubled. Fish farming produces a quarter of all fish and shellfish eaten by humans, and, as global solution, but also a potential contributing factor, to the continued decline of ocean fishery stocks worldwide.

In the first place, the more intensive forms of fish farming, oriented toward high-volume production, threaten the sustainability of ocean fisheries through water pollution and ecological disruption. Intensive fish farming usually involves the enclosure of fish in a secure system; population densities are typically high, resulting in the generation of large amounts pathogens can all ensue, seriously damaging ocean and coastal resources and, ultimately, wild fishery stocks.

Even more important, intensive farming of many species of fish requires large inputs of fish meal and fish oil in order to supply fatty acids that vegetable matter lacks or essential amino acids that it inadequately supplies, like lysine and methionine. For the ten species of fish most commonly farmed, an average carnivorous species requires up to 5 kilograms of wild fish for every kilogram of fish produced.

Expanding farm production does have the potential to alleviate some of the pressure on wild fishery stocks. For example, increasing the farm production of fish like salmon can reduce prices, deterring investment in fishing fleets and, over time, reducing fishing efforts. Similarly, other farmed fish like tilapia and channel catfish provide alternatives catch rates to remain high even as the production of viable farmed substitutes has increased.

What this question is testing

Inference

Your task

Find what must be true based on what the passage or stimulus states.

Common trap

Answers that are plausible or likely but not actually guaranteed by the text.

Winning move

Keep only the choice the statements fully support — eliminate anything that requires an extra assumption.

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

The question
13.

The information in the passage most strongly supports which one of the

Answer choices, explained

  1. Opposite, if anything7% picked this

    Wild fish require different nutrients than farmed

    The 3rd paragraph talks about what we feed to farmed fish. If anything, it seems to suggest that farmed fish need similar types of nutrients to what wild fish do. We're trying to give farmed fish a diet of vegetable matter, but we realize that it's not good enough. After all, (both wild and) farmed fish need fatty acids and need ample amounts of lysine and methionine.

  2. Out of Scope: profit26% picked this

    It is more profitable to farm species such as catfish, milkfish, and carp than to farm

    We know that one category of expenses is lower for catfish, milkfish, and carp, compared to salmon. For the former trio, for every 1 kg of fish meat we get, we need to feed them less than 1 kg of fish meal. For salmon, for every 1 kg of fish meat we get out, we need to feed them around 5 kg of fish meal. So we spend more money feeding salmon than we do this other power trio of fish. But this answer is about profit, which is "Revenue - Expenses". So even if the expenses for catfish / milkfish / carp are lower than those for salmon, we won't know which is more profitable until we find out how much revenue salmon brings in compared to these other three. We probably know we've paid a pretty penny for a plate of salmon at a nice restaurant, whereas we're less likely to have paid the same for catfish / milkfish / carp.

  3. Unknown Strong Comparison: as much3% picked this

    The farming of tilapia and channel catfish produces as much environmental damage as the farming

    It's very extreme to say that the farming of tilapia and catfish produces equal damage to what the farming of cod and haddock produce. In the final paragraph, it's mentioned that farmed fish like tilapia and catfish can provide alternatives to ocean fish like cod and haddock. We don't have any information about farming cod and haddock. And there's no way from that one sentence that we could derive how the overall environmental damage of farming each pair of species compares.

  4. Correct56% picked this

    A growing number of consumers are choosing wild-caught fish of certain species in preference

    Why this is right

    This is supported by the final sentence of the passage: Niche markets have started to develop (a growing number of consumers) for several species of wild-caught fish. The last sentence was essentially warning that as we make more and more of our fish come from fish farming, some people will be like, "I want ocean-caught fish, and I'll pay extra for it", which then creates an incentive for fishing fleets to get back out there.

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

  5. Too Strong8% picked this

    Noncarnivorous fish in the wild typically do not consume more food than their

    Too Strong: typically Unknown Comparison: wild vs. farmed The 3rd paragraph only talks about carnivorous fish, by name. It's implied that catfish / milkfish / carp are noncarnivorous, though. Does the wild version of these fish consume more food than their farmed counterparts do? We have no idea. We never compare the dietary intake of wild catfish to farmed catfish, for example. And even if we did, it would be a stretch for us to generalize from any of these three species to a statement about what's typical for wild, noncarnivorous fish in general.

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