Shareholder: The company’s current operations are time-proven successes. The move into food services may siphon off funds needed by these other operations. Also, the food service industry is volatile, with a higher inherent risk than with, for instance, pharmaceuticals, another area into which the company has considered expanding.
Summary
Current operations are successful. Moving into food services may take away funds needed by other operations. Moreover, the food service industry is volatile and has a higher risk than pharmaceuticals. The company has considered expanding into pharmaceuticals.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
Moving into food services would be a greater risk for the company compared to moving into pharmaceuticals.
A
The company’s present operations require increased funding.
This answer is unsupported. The shareholder tells us that current operations are a success.
B
Investment into pharmaceuticals would not siphon off money from other operations.
This answer is unsupported. We don’t know from the stimulus whether pharmaceuticals would not require funds to be taken from other operations. We know that expansion into food services would, but this does not imply that pharmaceuticals would not.
C
The company will lose money as it expands into the food service industry.
This answer is unsupported. We don’t know from the stimulus whether the company would for a fact lose money. We only know that this move is risker than a move into pharmaceuticals.
D
Only if the company expands its operations into pharmaceuticals are increased profits possible.
This answer is unsupported. We don’t know from the stimulus whether expansion into pharmaceuticals is a necessary condition for the company to increase their profits.
E
The company has a greater chance of losing money in food services than in pharmaceuticals.
This answer is strongly supported. We know from the stimulus that food service is volatile and risker than moving into pharmaceuticals. Therefore, since it is a risker expansion, food service represents a greater chance of losing money.
Summarize Argument: Counter-Position
The gardener claims that researchers’ advice to allow certain caterpillar repelling weeds to grow with garden vegetables is premature. It is possible that growing those weeds has downsides that are unknown - like increasing the presence of other pests or depleting the soil - and could damage the garden crops.
Identify Conclusion
The conclusion is the gardener’s claim about the cited advice: “the researchers' advice is premature.”
A
To the extent that it is possible to do so, we should eliminate the use of insecticides in gardening.
This inaccurately rephrases a concession point in the author’s argument. The author agrees that unnecessary insecticide use should be avoided, but doesn’t go as far as to say use should be eliminated.
B
Allowing certain kinds of weeds to grow in vegetable gardens may contribute to a net increase in unwanted garden pests.
This is a possibility the gardener addresses in the premises to show that the advice is premature because it may have big drawbacks.
C
Allowing the right kinds of weeds to grow in vegetable gardens can help toward controlling caterpillars without the use of insecticides.
This is the researchers’ reasoning in the context for why they recommend growing certain weeds. The gardener brings up other considerations against that recommendation.
D
We should be cautious about the practice of allowing certain kinds of weeds to grow among garden vegetables.
This answer choice accurately rephrases the gardener’s conclusion. The researcher’s advice (growing certain weeds among garden vegetables) is premature (we should be cautious about it).
E
We should be skeptical about the extent to which certain kinds of weeds can reduce the presence of caterpillars in gardens.
The gardener does not refute the researchers’ claim that the weeds reduce caterpillars. She claims that although there may be that benefit, the advice is premature because it may have other downsides.
Summarize Argument
The executive concludes that consumers’ response to a recent run of print ads in a magazine was probably below the average response to print ads. In support, the executive points out that the consumer response to digital ads on the magazine’s website was below the average response to digital ads.
Describe Method of Reasoning
The executive draws an analogy between two similar cases (print ads and digital ads) to justify drawing conclusions about one based on evidence from the other. This is how the executive comes to a conclusion about the response to the print ads based on response statistics from the digital ads.
A
bases a prediction of the intensity of a phenomenon on information about the intensity of that phenomenon’s cause
The executive doesn’t make predictions based on the cause of a phenomenon. There’s no discussion at all about the “intensity” of whatever might have caused a poor response to the ads.
B
uses information about the typical frequency of events of a general kind to draw a conclusion about the probability of a particular event of that kind
The executive doesn’t draw conclusions about a particular event based on the typical event of that kind. The executive’s conclusion about a particular case, print ads, is drawn from evidence from another particular case, digital ads, which is claimed to be analogous.
C
infers a statistical generalization from claims about a large number of specific instances
The executive doesn’t make any generalizations, and only ever discusses two specific instances—definitely not a large number.
D
uses a case in which direct evidence is available to draw a conclusion about an analogous case in which direct evidence is unavailable
The executive uses the case of digital ads, for which direct evidence of poor consumer response is available, to draw a conclusion that the consumer response was also poor for print ads. This is necessary because there’s no direct evidence about the print ads.
E
bases a prediction about future events on facts about recent comparable events
The executive doesn’t make any future predictions, instead only drawing a conclusion about one recent event based on an analogy to another recent event.
"Surprising" Phenomenon
Coyotes were removed from an island on the grounds they were decimating the plover population, but the plover population fell and eventually disappeared after the coyotes were removed.
Objective
The right answer will be a hypothesis that explains why removing the coyotes actually hurt the plover population. Since the coyotes preyed on wild cats, as well, the answer may point to a proliferation of other plover predators on the island.
A
Plover are ground-nesting birds, which makes them easy prey for coyotes.
This doesn’t explain why removing the coyotes harmed the plover population. If anything, this suggests removing the coyotes would’ve helped the plover.
B
Wild cat and plover populations tend to fluctuate together.
We don’t know what happened to the wild cat population once the coyotes were removed. Since the coyotes preyed on wild cats, it seems likely their population would’ve risen. The plover population would’ve thus risen as well, which it didn’t.
C
Coyotes are not susceptible to any of the diseases that commonly infect plover or wild cats.
The coyotes are gone. We need to know why their absence negatively affected the plover.
D
The wild cat population on the island was once significantly larger than it is currently.
We don’t know what a shrinking wild cat population would do for the plover. This doesn’t give us enough information.
E
The coyotes preyed mainly on wild cats, and wild cats prey on plover.
Once the coyotes were gone, wild cats ran rampant on the island and ate all the plover. This explains why removing the coyotes harmed the plover population.