#20 - Concept Reference, Weaken

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (D).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

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

Answer choice (E):

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

[jared.xu]

Hey Dave,

Thank you so much for your help so far. I have one additional "causal" question regarding a weakening question. It is from the supplemental Dec 1998 Reading Comprehension Section, Q #20 "Which one of the following, if true, would most weaken Papi's theory regarding homing pigeons' homing ability?" The causal relationship is: "associating odors born on the wind with the direction in which the wind is blowing--> building up an olfactory map--> successfully fly home." D and E are very attractive. They are both "effect with no cause." The reason I eliminated D, the right answer, is that it does not take into account the wind. Papi could say that even though pigeons have been transported well beyond the range of the odors detectable, the wind could bring the odors to them. I knew that E was not perfect either, Papi could say that even though the pigeons' sense of smell is no more acute, their brain is wired so that they could rely on their sense of smell better than the other birds to create an olfactory map. In the interest of time, I chose E and moved on because I thought that D does not take into consideration the wind, a crucial factor in Papi's theory. Under time pressure, what would you do? What would make you choose D rather than E? Do I lack certain background knowledge? (for instance, I do not know whether it's feasible for the wind to carry odors hundreds of thousands of kilometers from their origin. If it is feasible, I think D becomes quite problematic.) Thank you in advance for replying.

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Jared,

With (D), I see a pretty clear attack: Papi posited that olfactory elements account for homing ability, and (D) shows that when no olfactory elements are present, the pigeons can still home. This is, as you note, an "effect without cause" weakening approach.

In (D), you seem to have homed in (yes, pun intended ) on the idea of wind. But to me, (D) eliminates the wind issue because they explicitly state that the pigeons have been transported "well beyond the range of the odors detectable in their home territories." This language is Law Services' way of saying that the pigeons can't detect any odors they are familiar with from home. Wind or not, the idea here is that the pigeons can't find any smells they know.

In (E), I wouldn't agree that this is an "effect no cause" attack (if it was, it would be another correct answer). Papi didn't argue that homing pigeons had a better sense of smell, just they used theirs to build a map. Thus, the statement in this answer choice that their sense of smell is no more acute doesn't hurt Papi's theory.

Please let me know if that helps. Thanks!

[jared.xu]

Thank you very much for this explanation. I should have realized that "well beyond the range of the odors detectable in their home territories" already take into account the possibility of the wind. I thought the test takers were specifically testing whether we understood the passage about the wind. But it turned out to be a question that could be easily solved by Powerscore's bread-and-butter weakening causality technique.

[avengingangel]

Thanks for your explanations, They are very helpful, but I still don't find them complete. I had the same thought as Jared as to why D was incorrect. I was very careful in to "fall for it" by realizing that that answer choice is specifically talking about odors in their home territories, therefore, they would still be able to find home (and, likely, is how they actually are able to do it in many instances), because they've already developed map sense based on "ODORS BORNE ON THE WIND [ASSOCIATIED] WITH THE DIRECTION IN WHICH THE WIND IS BLOWING" (lines 39). All they would need to do in this situation, as described in the passage, is "sniff the air en route and/or at the site to know the direction of home." It says nothing about needing to know the smells of home; they just need to know the direction, which they can get from wind, and this answer choice has not ruled out the pigeons having access to smelling wind at the destination location. Thus, it is in fact NOT effect without the cause. Could you please elaborate more on the reasoning used? Thanks !!!!

[Adam Tyson]

You're missing a key element in your analysis, angel, and making a bad assumption. The passage doesn't tell us that homing pigeons learn the smells OF home, but that they learn the smells that are detectable FROM home. That would include any smells borne on the wind to their home. Answer D doesn't just tell us that they can't smell the smells of home, but that they cannot smell any of the smells that they could normally detect from home. In other words, absolutely none of the smells where they are released are the same smells that they can detect when they are home - there is a complete olfactory disconnect.

Now, with all that said, let me bounce this back to you. If you don't want to select answer D, then which answer did you determine was better, and why? That's the goal - pick the best answer - so a decision to reject D should only be based on the decision that another answer is superior. D doesn't need to be perfect, just better than the other four. Don't ever get hung up on an answer just because you think it is imperfect! Don;t worry too much about why an answer is "right" or "wrong", when you should instead be focused entirely on which is best among the five choices you have before you. It's okay if it stinks, as long as it stinks less than the others.

Ponder that idea, and apply it to every single question in every section on this test. Never, ever, ever reject an answer just because you don't like it or because it is imperfect. Reject it only on the grounds that it isn't the best of the five choices. That kind of shift can radically alter your view of, and performance on, the whole test. Give it a try, and good luck!

[StephLewis13]

Hi PowerScore,

I understand the reasonings above, however, I selected C because my understand of the olfactory map was different than what I now believe was intended. My understanding was that the pigeons were transferred from one site to another. At each site, there was a different smell, and the pigeons were using those smells to map or trace backwards to get home.

For example, they transferred the pigeons from home (site A), through site B, through site C, and released in site D.
Let's say Site A (home): smells like vanilla
Site B smells like oranges
Site C smells like strawberries
Site D smells like pineapple

So while the pigeons were traveling and being transferred from Home to Release, they smelled vanilla —> oranges —> strawberries —> pineapple. So to return home, they would trace these smells backwards from the released site (i.e. pineapple —> strawberries —> oranges —> vanilla). So although they were not able to smell home (i.e. vanilla) from the released site, they were able to MAP their way home by searching for the next scent, therefore making answer choice D not weaken the argument.

Thanks in advance!

[Jeremy Press]

Hi Steph,

The problem with that reading is that the passage doesn't provide any evidence that a pigeon builds up its olfactory familiarity during the transport to the release site. Instead, in the paragraph that describes the Papi theory, they say that the pigeons "slowly build up an olfactory map of their surroundings" prior to being transferred to the release site. So if you take them beyond their surroundings (their "home territories," as answer choice D says), then they haven't built up their olfactory map. And then they have to use something other than that map to find their way home.

For your reading to work, basically, the passage would have to give us some evidence that pigeons could build up an olfactory map during the transfer itself. But the passage implies that the process of building olfactory maps is a slow one ("slowly build up"), which seems to rule out the possibility you're describing.

I hope this helps!