#8 - For a species of large abalone shellfish to develop

[Administrator]

Please post below with any questions!

[ndimas]

Hi! Can someone please explain this question. Thank you!

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hi ndimas,

Thanks for the question! Generally, it will help us target our answer to make it more helpful to you if you provide an explanation of how you approached the question, which answer you chose, and why.

Generally, though, this question uses sufficient/necessary reasoning, so you'll want to start by diagramming.

Premise: large species developed from small species less energy on food/avoiding predators AND more competition in mating

Given that, you need to explain why large abalone developed from small ones only after otters appeared.
The correct answer is going to tell you that otters = either less energy on food/avoiding predators OR more competition in mating OR both.

C does that: It tells you that otters mean less competition for food, which would help explain why otters led to the development of a larger species of abalone from a smaller species.

Hope that helps!

[brcibake]

I'm having trouble seeing sufficient and necessary conditioning when taking practice lsats. I always look for the target words. Could you tell me the target words in this stimulus or how I would know that it requires sufficient and necessary reasoning? Thank you lots

[Francis O'Rourke]

hi brci,

The strongest indicator that I see in this stimulus is the word must in the first sentence. This word always tells you that whatever term it is modifying in the sentence is required. In this stimulus, this means that the the following terms "spend less on finding and avoiding" and "spend more on competition" are necessary for these shellfish to develop.

[Margo]

Premise: large species developed from small species less energy on food/avoiding predators AND more competition in mating

Given that, you need to explain why large abalone developed from small ones only after otters appeared.
The correct answer is going to tell you that otters = either less energy on food/avoiding predators OR more competition in mating OR both.

C does that: It tells you that otters mean less competition for food, which would help explain why otters led to the development of a larger species of abalone from a smaller species.

Hope that helps!

Hi,
I had difficulty feeling confident with C because it only fulfilled one aspect of the premise. It discusses how the increase in otters could have led to the abalones spending less energy getting food, but C doesn't explain how the increase in otters would lead to more competition in mating. I thought that the conditional phrase means that both circumstances have to be true: abalones spend less energy on finding food/avoiding predators AND they spend more energy on competition in mating.

I guess it's okay that the answer to a resolve the discrepancy problem only satisfies one of the 2 necessary conditions? Just wanted a little clarification.

Thank you for your help

[James Finch]

Hi Margo,

In this case, the discrepancy only occurs because otters prey on abalone, which only negates one of the two necessary conditions. So if we can negate the effect of otters preying on abalone (negating the negation, making both necessary conditions potentially positive again) by dealing with the other prong of that condition (time spent finding food), the paradox could be resolved and our conditional would still work. This is what answer choice (C) does, making it correct.

Hope this helps!

[lanereuden]

Hi Margo,

In this case, the discrepancy only occurs because otters prey on abalone, which only negates one of the two necessary conditions. So if we can negate the effect of otters preying on abalone (negating the negation, making both necessary conditions potentially positive again) by dealing with the other prong of that condition (time spent finding food), the paradox could be resolved and our conditional would still work. This is what answer choice (C) does, making it correct.

Hope this helps!

Well, then...Emily says:
"Given that, you need to explain why large abalone developed from small ones only after otters appeared.
The correct answer is going to tell you that otters = either less energy on food/avoiding predators OR more competition in mating OR both."
So James, are you saying that we are not really concerned with more competition in mating. That is, if answer touched on more competition, we would not consider it to be a contender....I mean, you say: the discrepancy only occurs because otters prey on abalone.

[Adam Tyson]

That's not what James is saying, lanereuden. He's saying the whole reason that there is a paradox is that otters are abalone predators, which would make you think the abalones would have to spend more time avoiding them and should not get larger, but they nevertheless got larger.

We can resolve this paradox in any way that shows the predators provide a benefit that more than compensates for their predation on abalones. If the otters somehow help with their mating, or if the otters somehow help make it easier for abalones to get food, that could explain the otherwise paradoxical information. An answer that indicated that the presence of otters stimulate the abalones to mate more frequently might also do the trick! I know it would for me - if some alien species came to earth and started hunting humans, and it looked to me like the end was near, I would spend as much of my time mating as I possibly could in the time I had left!

[LawSchoolDream]

Can you pls explain why D is incorrect? I chose it because it had to do with mating and felt if there are smaller species are reproducing super fast then rate of larger species is increasing since they come from smaller species and they would outnumber otters. I skipped C because I felt that just because they would eat the competitors food doesn't mean the otters wouldn't eat the abalonesfood but also doesn't mean they wouldn't eat abalones itself. Comparitively between C and D, I felt that more abalones would be eaten in C than D because D was reproducing fast!!!