Hampton: You are overlooking the promise of technology. I am confident that improvements in agriculture will allow us to feed the world population of ten billion predicted for 2050 without significantly increasing the percentage of the world’s land now devoted to agriculture.
Speaker 1 Summary
Kim claims that the growing world population is threatening nature by causing increased demand for food production. To support the idea that there’s a threat, Kim explains that the demands of a larger population will require more land use, thereby reducing the land available to wildlife.
Speaker 2 Summary
Hampton believes that the harm to nature won’t be as bad as Kim thinks. This conclusion isn’t stated, but is implied by Hampton’s claims that Kim is overlooking the impact of technology, and that technology will allow farmers to produce enough food without using more land.
Objective
We need to find an agreement between Kim and Hampton. They agree that the world population is growing and will need more food, and seem to agree about the general goal of protecting nature.
A
Efforts should be taken to slow the rate of human population growth and to increase the amount of land committed to agriculture.
Neither speaker makes either of these claims. Firstly, no one brings up the idea of slowing population growth. Secondly, both Kim and Hampton are favorable to limiting the amount of land used for agriculture, not increasing it.
B
Continued research into more-efficient agricultural practices and innovative biotechnology aimed at producing more food on less land would be beneficial.
Kim would agree with this in order to limit the harm population growth will cause to nature. Hampton would also agree, as shown by the use of words like “promise” and “improvement” to discuss these advancements in a positive light. This is a point of agreement.
C
Agricultural and wilderness areas need to be protected from urban encroachment by preparing urban areas for greater population density.
Neither speaker discusses increasing the density of urban areas; nor do either of them talk about protecting agricultural land from urban sprawl.
D
In the next half century, human population growth will continue to erode wildlife habitats and diminish forests.
Kim can reasonably be said to agree with this. However, Hampton does not necessarily agree: Hampton claims that increased food production likely won’t erode habitats or forests, and doesn’t talk about any other factor that would.
E
The human diet needs to be modified in the next half century because of the depletion of our natural resources due to overpopulation.
Neither speaker talks about modifying human diets. Additionally, although Kim is concerned about a threat to natural resources, neither Kim nor Hampton talks about a total depletion of resources.
Summary
The ratio of cartilage mass to body mass is the % of an animal’s mass that is made of up cartilage. This % is higher for sharks than it is for any other organism.
Sharks have a greater resistance to cancer than any other organism.
Shark cartilage has a substance that inhibits tumor growth.
In the past 20 years, the response of terminal cancer patients to eating shark cartilage has been therapeutically better or as good as any other response of those patients to other treatments.
Sharks have a greater resistance to cancer than any other organism.
Shark cartilage has a substance that inhibits tumor growth.
In the past 20 years, the response of terminal cancer patients to eating shark cartilage has been therapeutically better or as good as any other response of those patients to other treatments.
Notable Valid Inferences
There’s no clear inference to draw. I’d rely on process of elimination to identify which answer must be false.
A
No organism resists cancer better than sharks do, but some resist cancer as well as sharks.
Must be false. We know sharks have a greater resistance to cancer than any other organism. So it’s impossible for some organisms to resist cancer as well as sharks.
B
The organism most susceptible to cancer has a higher percentage of cartilage than some organisms that are less susceptible to cancer.
Could be true. We know about how sharks’ cartilage ratio compares to other animals. But we don’t know about how one non-shark animal’s cartilage ratio compares to another non-shark animal.
C
The substance in shark cartilage that inhibits tumor growth is found in most organisms.
Could be true. Sharks have a substance that inhibits tumor growth, but most other animals could have this, too. Sharks may just have more of this substance than other animals.
D
In the past 20 years many terminal cancer patients have improved dramatically following many sorts of therapy.
Could be true. Many therapies can help patients. Eating shark cartilage works as well or better than those therapies, though.
E
Some organisms have immune systems more efficient than a shark’s immune system.
Could be true. The stimulus doesn’t tell us about the efficiency of a shark’s immune system. We know about resistance to cancer, but that doesn’t guarantee anything about overall immune system efficiency.