#21 - Concept Reference, Must Be True, Subject Perspective

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (A).

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[Albertlyu]

HI PS,

Please may I ask if anyone can show me where the support for A is in the passage as I could not find it anywhere?

thank you

Albert

[clbrogesr]

Hey Albert,

Not PS Staff, but I missed this question on my PT and spent quite a while looking at it. I actually think answer A makes a great deal of sense, having examined it without the pressures of time and stress during the PT.

The passage opens by telling us that the species question is often divided into two camps: lumpers and splitters. Lumpers - who use the biological species concept as thus serve as our POV for this question - lump many similar populations into a single species. They are opposed by the splitters, who seek - as their very on-the-nose name suggests - to split them up into several species.

Answer A tells us that there are more species in the world than we recognize. To understand why the lumpers (who, again, use the biological species concept) would disagree with this, I found it useful to step into the mindset of their nemesis, the splitters. The splitters would absolutely agree with answer A. The splitters feel that the lumpers have grouped too many populations into a single species when in reality they ought to be split up into a multitude of species. Consequently, the splitters would agree that there are more species in the world than we recognize.

The lumpers - of course - would disagree with this take. They would say that it is appropriate to lump a multitude of populations together into a singular category and that in doing so (because they have been the dominant approach so far) they have not grossly underestimated the number of species. Additionally, the strength of the answer ("considerably") helps give us some extra ammo with this choice. Maybe the lumpers would agree that we have not gotten it just right, but they would say that lumping into big categories is generally fine, and disagree that we have gotten it considerably wrong.

Hopefully that helps!

[Adam Tyson]

Good analysis, and I'll just take the opportunity to emphasize one point that cbrogesr already raised: the biological species approach, the "lumpers," have been the dominant ones, so it makes sense that the current classifications fit what they think it correct. Thus, since they are currently the "winning team," they would be unlikely to say they have gotten it wrong!

[mkarimi73]

Can (C) and (D) be confidently removed, since they involve topics that a proponent of the biological species concept/lumpers did not speak on? We have no idea what their thoughts on extinction and biodiversity are, correct? (I recognize that this question stem involves "it can be inferred...", so I kept trying to think whether they'd explicitly disagree with either of theses two answer choices.)

[Paul Popa]

Hi M,

You are spot-on. The biological species concept was mentioned only in paragraph 1, and the only detail we get from this concept is that its proponents look at reproduction as a means of determining species. Nowhere are we given any indication from the passage how proponents feel about the topics of extinction and biodiversity mentioned in answer choices C and D, respectively. Great job!