#19 - Forester: The great majority of the forests remaining

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Must Be True. The correct answer choice is (A)

This forester tells the story of the world’s remaining forests, which have significantly dwindled from what they once were. They are home to many endangered species but are not self sustaining. The final sentence in the stimulus is a conditional statement:

To maintain all of their respective plant and animal species, these forests require resource manager intervention:

• maintain all species resource manager intervention

The contrapositive: intervention can maintain all species

Only correct answer choice (A) is confirmed by the information presented in the stimulus. This is the correct answer choice, restating the contrapositive diagrammed above. If there is no intervention, not every species can be maintained.

[ylikate]

Would B have been correct if it says"Some (instead of "Many") of the world's most engangered species will not survive?
Or are there some other problems with choice B?

Thanks

[Steve Stein]

Hi Kate,

Good question. "Some" and "many" are similarly vague--that is not the issue with (B)

The author has provided that the majority of forests are sickly fragments, yet they include the last of some endangered species. That would allow for the possibility that two or three forests in the world, for example, have endangered species.

Choice (B) goes too far, saying that without regular intervention in most of the forests in the world, endangered species will die. We might just have to intervene in two or three forests in order to save those species referenced by Forester.

I hope that's helpful! Please let me know whether this is clear--thanks!

~Steve

[ylikate]

so of the majority of forests that are fragmented, maybe only 1 or 2 supports endangered species. Therefore it's not necessary, as B states, to intervene majority of the forest. Am I understanding it correctly?

[Steve Stein]

Hey Kate,

That's a tricky wrong answer choice, but you got it!

~Steve

[bk1111]

Hi Kate,

Good question. "Some" and "many" are similarly vague--that is not the issue with (B)

The author has provided that the majority of forests are sickly fragments, yet they include the last of some endangered species. That would allow for the possibility that two or three forests in the world, for example, have endangered species.

Choice (B) goes too far, saying that without regular intervention in most of the forests in the world, endangered species will die. We might just have to intervene in two or three forests in order to save those species referenced by Forester.

I hope that's helpful! Please let me know whether this is clear--thanks!

~Steve

Hi, I am confused about this. "A" also states 53% "most of the world's forests" will lose some animal species and you pointed out B is incorrect because of "most of the forests in the world". Isn't that the same thing?

I did not choose A because it said "if no one intervenes"...I thought that was too general. Why does that not matter? Thanks

[Charlie Melman]

Hi bk1111,

This is a very tough question because answer choices (A), and (B) are very similar.

(B) translates to "Not intervene Many of the world's most endangered species will not survive.

The problem here is that the stimulus talks about the "full complement" of species, while this answer choice talks about "endangered species." Maybe the endangered species will survive even though the full complement won't.

Hope this helps!

[lilmissunshine]

The problem here is that the stimulus talks about the "full complement" of species, while this answer choice talks about "endangered species." Maybe the endangered species will survive even though the full complement won't.

Hi Charlie,

Are you saying maybe some species that are not the most endangered won't survive? In other words, the world's most endangered species are not necessarily the ones that won't survive. So is the flaw in answer choice (B) not "most of the world's remaining forests"? To be honest I found the previous explanation a bit confusing...

Many thanks!

[Alex Bodaken]

lilmissunshine,

Thanks for the question! You're on the right track re: Charlie's explanation: the issue is that while the stimulus says that without resource manager intervention, a "full complement" of plants and animals will not survive, answer choice (B) says specifically that it will be the endangered species that will not survive without intervention. We simply can't make that leap: as you note, perhaps it is the non-endangered species that will not survive rather than the endangered species...we don't know. That lack of provability is what makes (B) an incorrect answer choice.

Hope that helps!
Alex

[Katherinthesky]

Is (D) incorrect because of the "always," which cannot be supported?

Thanks in advance.