#2 - Being near woodlands, the natural habitat of bees

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

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

The conclusion of this argument can be found in the first sentence: being near woodlands promotes the health of crops. Why? Because bees visit flowers far from woodlands less often than they visit flowers close to woodlands. The question remains as to why the number of visits by the bees would have any effect on the plant's chance of being pollinated. Answer choice (A) provides the missing link between the premise and the conclusion.

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice. If the likelihood of pollination is directly proportional to the number of visits by the bees, and bees typically visit flowers close to woodlands more often, it follows that being near the natural habitat of bees is beneficial to the plants.

Answer choice (B): This answer does the exact opposite of what is needed: it weakens the argument by stating that bees can be found elsewhere, and therefore plants may not need to be near woodlands to have a high chance of pollination.

Answer choice (C): If some pollinators are found outside of woodlands, this could weaken the argument in the same way answer choice (B) would. This answer choice is incorrect.

Answer choice (D): As with answer choices (B) and (C), this one weakens the argument by suggesting alternate ways for plants to get pollinated. If some pollinators tend to travel far, then perhaps it is not necessary that plants are situated close to the natural habitat of bees.

Answer choice (E): The fact that many crops that are not near woodlands depend on pollination is irrelevant to this argument, as it is unclear whether they receive sufficient pollination. Perhaps they do, which would weaken the argument here.

[albamolina]

I need further explanation as to why E Many crops that are not near woodlands depend on pollination.... not work. If many crops that are not near woodlands depend on pollination, wouldn't being near it promote the health of crops that depend on pollination? Bringing those flowers to the woodland help it?

[Steven Palmer]

Hi,

The argument in the stimulus is focusing on how being near woodlands promotes the health of the crops. So, I need my answer to give me more proof that this occurs. That is why (A) is correct, because it tells me that the bees being close does in fact yield more pollinating than when the bees are far.

Answer Choice (E) does not tell me anything about how bees promote the health of plants, why pollinating more is good, or so on. It just tells me that there exist some plants that some crops are not close to woodlands. I only care about crops that are close to woodlands being helped by the bees.

Hope this helps!
Steven

[Blueballoon5%]

Hello! I also picked answer choice E because I thought that these "many crops" (not near woodlands) would serve as a contrast to the closer woodland crops. Because they both need pollination (referenced in stimulus and answer choice E) and the bees will visit the closer woodland crops more (referenced in sentence 2 of stimulus), it would be safe to conclude that (in comparison of the two crop areas) the closer woodland crops will be more healthier than the farther crops.

Could someone help explain how my way of thinking about this answer choice is wrong. Thanks!!

[Adam Tyson]

The problem I see with answer E, Blueballoon, is that it tells us nothing about the health of those far away crops. So let's say there is some flax growing very far from woodlands, and flax needs to be pollinated. How does that presence of that flax, far away from the woods, strengthen the claim that the crops closer to the woods are healthier? I feel like that answer might even have the opposite effect, because it's existence far away from the woods and bees suggests that it is at least healthy enough to survive out there, so maybe being closer isn't a good thing? Hard to say.

I should ask, about careful reading here, because it would be very easy for someone to misread this answer as saying that many crops NEAR woodlands need pollination. That might strengthen the argument by showing a correlation between nearness and pollination. However, this answer says many crops NOT near woodlands need pollination. Perhaps that distinction is what is causing the confusion here?

The best way to view this argument is by noticing the gap between the premise, which is about how often bees visit flowers, and the conclusion, which is about the health of those crops. The missing link here is "more visits means more pollination and thus healthier crops", and that is answer A.

[T.B.Justin]

I thought that "being near woodlands" modified bees. I understand that it modifies "promotes the health of crops that depend on pollination."

I also misidentified the conclusion and premise; I had it in reverse order.

I managed to narrow it down to A and C. I chose C as I thought that bees were "near the woodlands" but even then I think this doesnt make it more or less likely to be true that bees visit flowers far from woodlands less often than they visit flowers close to woodlands.

I need some help on this analysis. I am trying to determine why I came to answer choice C



Edit: If per se as crops "move closer" towards the woodlands (the natural habitat of the most common pollinator, bees) more bees are attempting to pollinate those crops the "closer" they inch towards the woodlands, then that is increasing the likelihood of pollination, which in turn is increasing the likelihood for promoting the health of the crops that depend on pollination.

Is this reasoning sound?

[Brook Miscoski]

Justin,

It seems that you understand that the first sentence is the conclusion and the second sentence is the premise; you are still questioning how to pick (A) instead of (C).

If woodlands are not the natural habitat of pollinators, that weakens the claim that being near woodlands is beneficial to crops that need to be pollinated. Thus, (C) should be eliminated.

(A) strengthens the argument by establishing that increased visits from pollinators helps the crops; ergo, being near the pollinators is beneficial given the argument's premise that pollinators visit close-by places more frequently.

[lsatprep1215]

Hi, I want to ask what is the flaw in the argument? Is it a causation fallacy? I was not able to anticipate an answer until I move on to the answer choice. I still end up picking A

[KelseyWoods]

Hi LSATPrep!

To identify flaws in arguments, identify the conclusion, identify the premise, and then ask yourself, why don't the premises fully prove the conclusion? As discussed above, the conclusion of the argument is that being near woodlands and bees promotes the health of crops that depend on pollination. The premise is that bees visit flowers far away from woodlands less often than they visit the flowers close to woodlands. Why don't the premises fully support that conclusion? Because we don't know whether visiting flowers more often actually results in more pollination. Answer choice (A) fills in that missing link.

All flaws boil down to the premises not fully supporting the conclusion. Oftentimes that's because there's a missing link between the evidence and the conclusion. So when prephrasing, remember to always identify the conclusion, identify the premises, and ask yourself why the premises don't fully prove that conclusion. If it's a Strengthen question, you then look for the answer choice that fixes that flaw by filling in the gap or the missing link, etc.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[Tuothekhazar]

The Numbers that bees visit Woodland that nearby their habitat not less often than that farther from their Habitat

V n( W/ H.C ) > or = V n+1( W/ H.F )

* V n( Y ) > or = V n+1 ( X )

So, The degree of promoting the health of crops, depends on P of ( W/ H.C ) > it of ( W/ H. F )

C: * DPn ( W/ H.C ) > DP n+1( W/ H.F )

*DP n( Y ) > DP n+1 ( X )

To best strengthen the correlation and the conclusion supported, all we have to do is to ensure that only the scenario of V1 ( Y )> V2 (X ) required be discussed, since if Vn( Y ) = Vn+1 ( X ), and DP n ( Y ) > DP n+1 ( X ), then we know V does not cause the fluctuation of DPn, since Vn always = V∞*n.

V1: DP1 = V2: DP2
V1/DP1 = V2/ DP2
V1: V2 = DP1: DP2


Which one of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument?


The likelihood that a plant is pollinated increases as the number of visits from pollinators increases.

If V increase from Vn - Vn+a, then P increased from Pn - Pn+a, which is to say, Vn: Vn+a = Pn: Pn+a. Matching our prediction 3.


(B) Many bees live in habitats other than woodlands.

It does not mean that whether we do have sufficient bees to perform sufficient visits that sufficiently present the varies degree of promoting the health of crop, depends on pollinations.

(C) Woodlands are not the natural habitat of all pollinators.

We should not ever ever rebuttal the premise, and whether it be natural or not actually touch none on the argument.

(D) Some pollinators visit flowers far from their habitats more often than they visit flowers close to their habitats.

Comparison trap answer. First of all, no way do we know that if those pollinators also dwell on the region discussed. Secondly, we do not know if they only visits certain crops, and Thirdly, it seems to be a weaken answer that we can just eliminate it within 0.03 secs.

(E) Many crops that are not near woodlands depend on pollination.

Outside of the scope.