#21 - Must Be True

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation
(See the complete passage discussion here: lsat/viewtopic.php?t=11555)

The correct answer choice is (E)

In the third paragraph of the passage the author discusses the various behaviors of the pronghorn that may be explained as relict behavior.

Answer choice (A): This choice is far more absolute than provided for by the author, who only says that herding is beneficial, not that herding grazers never get attacked.

Answer choice (B): The point is that they do not need to graze in herds, but they still do, so it must have something to do with past stimuli.

Answer choice (C): There is nothing mentioned in the passage that allows this conditional relationship to be drawn, so this answer choice should be eliminated.

Answer choice (D): While the third paragraph does refer to a preference for athletic prowess, there is no assertion that only the fastest is chosen to mate.

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice. Again, since the point is that they herd without the necessity for herding protection, this answer choice must be true.

[lathlee]

hi. I got this question wrong cuz i had b and e as the final contender but didn't know what to do in conditional nature of those two choices. can you explain to me how does that work especially the nature of danger herding conditional relationship did not really express clearly as conditional nature in passage stem, i got scared and anxious, then fumbled

[James Finch]

Hi Lathlee,

Don't be afraid of conditionality, as it should still simply be an inference that comes directly from the passage, in this case the third paragraph. That paragraph talks about the herding behavior exhibited by pronghorns despite the lack of predators capable of attacking them. Armed with that understanding, we can parse the answer choices:

(A): No, this runs directly contrary to what is stated in lines 33-34, that herding diminishes the chance that any single individual animal will be attacked. This allows us to draw the opposite inference, that predators do attack herd animals.

(B): Another opposite answer. The point of the paragraph is that pronghorns graze in herds despite the lack of threat from any predators, which has baffled scientists.

(C): This is out-of-scope, and well beyond any reasonable inference we could draw, as we have no idea whether only grazing animals roam in herds or not.

(D): While there is evidence to support the inference that female pronghorns choose their mates based on speed, this doesn't mean that only the fastest male pronghorns are chosen, which would be a step too far from the information that we've been given.

(E): This answer choice gets at the main point of the paragraph directly, that pronghorns continue to herd despite the lack of threat from predators. As there is no threat now from predators, since the predators cannot catch up to the pronghorns, we can safely assume that there would be no threat to them if they didn't herd either. So this is the correct answer choice.

Hope this helps!

[lemonade42]

Hello,
Just to confirm: the reason why (D) is wrong is because the term "victor" is vague. To the female pronghorns, "victor" could be the fastest or the slowest or the prettiest etc. in the race. It's unclear about what the author means when they say the female chooses the victor, it just means whoever the females choose in the end. It doesn't necessarily have to be the fastest.

[Chandler H]

Hello,
Just to confirm: the reason why (D) is wrong is because the term "victor" is vague. To the female pronghorns, "victor" could be the fastest or the slowest or the prettiest etc. in the race. It's unclear about what the author means when they say the female chooses the victor, it just means whoever the females choose in the end. It doesn't necessarily have to be the fastest.

Hi lemonade42,

Not quite. We know that female pronghorns choose the victor after "sprints and chases," and that they value "speed and endurance," so it's probably safe to assume that the fastest pronghorn is the victor.

However, the main issue with answer choice (D) is that tricky word "only"! Think about it: if ALL female pronghorns mate ONLY with the FASTEST male pronghorn in the herd, that means every female is mating with just a singular male—the fastest one. This isn't backed up by the evidence in the passage; we can assume that there is a variety of male-female pairings, based on individual contests, not on one singular fastest pronghorn.

Does that make sense?