#9 - The local agricultural official gave the fruit growers

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Strengthen-CE. The correct answer choice is (C)

To support the claim that the new pesticide was more effective than the old one, one must be able to directly compare the results of the two on the same type of trees. If trees that were treated with the old pesticide did not show a reduction in losses of fruit to insects, then the conclusion that the new pesticide was more effective than the more one is strengthened.

Answer choice (A): If trees treated with the new pesticide did not show a reduction in losses of fruit to insects, this would directly weaken the official’s conclusion.

Answer choice (B): This would not help the official’s conclusion since by treating the trees with both pesticides, it is impossible to credit the reduction in losses of fruit to insects to the new pesticide and not the old.

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice. If trees treated with the old pesticide did not show a reduction in losses of fruit to insects but trees treated with the new pesticide did, then it supports the conclusion that the new pesticide was more effective.

Answer choice (D): This does not support the official’s conclusion since it does not allow us to compare the effects of the old and new pesticide.

Answer choice (E): This does not support the official’s conclusion because it does not allow us to directly compare the effects of the old and new pesticide. This is because the lack of reduction in losses of fruit to insects could be due to the properties of the neighboring district, and not the pesticide. Moreover, by using the new pesticide, it does not allow us to compare the effects of the old and new pesticide.

[ellenb]

Dear Powerscore,

I got question 8 right for the same topic howerver for question 9, I picked E and I know the answer is C. Maybe, I must have read it wrong and thought "did show" instead of "didn't show" please let me know your thoughts on that.

Thanks

Ellen

[David Boyle]

Dear Powerscore,

I got question 8 right for the same topic howerver for question 9, I picked E and I know the answer is C. Maybe, I must have read it wrong and thought "did show" instead of "didn't show" please let me know your thoughts on that.

Thanks

Ellen

Hello,

Though we cannot presume to know how you may have read the question, perhaps what you said above about "did show" instead of "didn't show" may make some sense. E says, "pear trees grown in a neighboring district that were treated with the new pesticide instead of the old pesticide", and if we read the question stem "your way", as, they **did show** improvement, then that could help the argument, though we don't know if the trees in that other district are the same kinds of trees grown under the same conditions, etc., as the ones in the original district.
With C, "pear trees grown in the district that were treated with the old pesticide instead of the new pesticide", you have a missing cause and a missing effect, i.e., missing the new pesticide, and not showing an improvement. That strengthens the causal relationship.

David

[ellenb]

Makes sense David, as the saying goes we need to compare apples to apples and oranges to oragnges, what if it was peach trees instead of pear trees and everything else stayed the same for answer choice C would it still be correct. Since, if would say that peach trees grown in the same district... etc. the only difference it would be the type of tree, would C still be correct? or we need to be comparing pear trees to pear trees? and not peach to pear even though from the same neighborhood?

Thanks in advance!
Ellen

[David Boyle]

Makes sense David, as the saying goes we need to compare apples to apples and oranges to oragnges, what if it was peach trees instead of pear trees and everything else stayed the same for answer choice C would it still be correct. Since, if would say that peach trees grown in the same district... etc. the only difference it would be the type of tree, would C still be correct? or we need to be comparing pear trees to pear trees? and not peach to pear even though from the same neighborhood?

Thanks in advance!
Ellen

Hello Ellen,

I think you would need pear, not peach, for an accurate comparison. If we believe a medicine hurts chickens, we probably want to discuss tests of the medicine with chickens, not turkeys.

Hope that helps,

David

[lathlee]

This 11-88 Q 44, the way question is construct always throws me off, therefore, is it okay to phrase the question as " did not show a reduction in losses of fruit to insects" = "did not show improvement of the area, fruits that are reduced by Insect factor"

[Adam Tyson]

I think it would be fine to paraphrase "did not show a reduction in losses" by saying "did not show improvement", lathlee.

[lanereuden]

Can someone elaborate on why D doesn’t work ? I feel like this is the: “control part of the science experiment “ so to speak

[Adam Tyson]

You could be right that those untreated trees in a neighboring district could be part of the experiment, but if untreated trees showed no reduction in losses (they did just as badly as they had done before) would that tell us anything about the comparison between the two pesticides? It might tell us that pesticide use in general was better than not using pesticides, but we still wouldn't have much evidence favoring one pesticide over the other. The difference could be due to differences in the districts, instead of in the pesticides. That makes answer C a much better answer, because it really is a good control group, allowing us to compare the two pesticides side by side in the same place and time. Since C is the better answer, even if D could help (and it is a bit of a stretch without more information about similarities between the districts) it is not the best answer we have, and we have to go with the best one.