Logical Reasoning

PT156 · S2 · Q1 When primatologist Akira Suzuki

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When primatologist Akira Suzuki began studying snow monkeys in the 1950s, he found that they often roamed out of the mountains to feed in apple orchards.

Anticipate

The strongest pattern here is that the snow monkeys stopped leaving the mountain to raid orchards as soon as Suzuki started providing soybeans in the mountain habitat. The most strongly supported inference will draw on that before-and-after change.

Evidence

Before food was supplied: monkeys roamed out to apple orchards. After Suzuki provided soybeans in the mountain habitat: monkeys stopped raiding orchards.

Goal

Find the answer that follows directly from the stimulus — most likely something tying the monkeys' decision to leave the mountain habitat to whether food is available there.

1.

Which one of the following claims is most strongly supported by the information above?

  1. Correct

    Snow monkeys do not feed

    Why this is right

    This follows directly from the before-and-after pattern. When food was not readily available in the mountain habitat, the monkeys roamed out to feed in apple orchards. Once Suzuki started providing soybeans in the mountain habitat — making food readily available there — the monkeys stopped raiding the orchards. That is exactly what this answer claims: snow monkeys do not feed outside their mountain habitat when food is available within it.

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

    94% picked this

  2. For snow monkeys, soybeans provide

    Unsupported

    The stimulus says nothing about how soybeans compare to other beans nutritionally. The monkeys ate soybeans because Suzuki provided them; we have no information about which beans are most nutritious or whether the monkeys would behave the same way with a different bean.

    1% picked this

  3. In feeding soybeans to the

    Unsupported

    The stimulus tells us what Suzuki did but not what he intended. Whether the population growth was a goal, a surprise, or a regret to him is simply not addressed. Most-strongly-supported answers cannot rely on the unstated motivations of people in the stimulus.

    3% picked this

  4. Snow monkeys eat apples only

    Unsupported

    The stimulus says monkeys roamed to apple orchards before being fed soybeans. It does not tell us anything about other fruit or rank apples among other foods the monkeys might eat. This answer makes a much sharper claim — that monkeys eat apples only when no other fruit is available — that the stimulus simply does not establish.

    2% picked this

  5. Feeding soybeans to snow monkeys

    Unsupported

    Whether feeding the monkeys was environmentally unsound is a value judgment the stimulus does not make. The population growth is described neutrally; the stimulus does not call it harmful or weigh costs against benefits.

    0% picked this

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