#6 - Monarch butterflies spend the winter hibernating on

[na02]

Hi,
I'm having trouble seeing why E is correct. I had B and D as contenders, and had actually crossed out E because I thought I should focus on woodcutters vs. tour groups (and since E doesn't talk about either, I crossed it out).
Any explanation would help, thank you!

[Adam Tyson]

Happy to help, na02! The author concludes that the tour groups are endangering, rather than helping, the monarchs. Why does he think that? Because they are making it harder for the hibernating monarchs that fall off the trees to survive.

To evaluate this argument, you need to know if what the tour groups are doing really is contributing to a problem. My prephrase was "do the monarchs that fall off the trees matter?" If they are important to the overall survival of the monarchs, then it looks like the argument is a good one, because the tour groups are causing a problem. But if the ones that fall off the trees don't matter - either they are a small percentage of the total, or maybe they mostly don't survive anyway - then the argument is weak, because what the tour groups are doing isn't a big deal. That's where answer E comes in.

What if the answer to the question posed in answer E is "none - zero percent fall off the trees". If that's the case, the argument is completely destroyed, because what the tour groups are doing is irrelevant. On the other hand, what if the answer is "100% - they all fall off." If that's so, then the argument is very, very strong - the tour groups are making it close to impossible for any monarchs to survive.

That "Variance Testtm" is the way to check the answer choices for these Evaluate the Argument questions (which are very rare, usually one or none per test).

Try that test on your other contender answers, and ask yourself what impact your answers have on the claim about tour groups and what impact they are having. Provide opposite answers, like "all/none" and "yes/no", and see if one answer strengthens the argument while the other weakens it.