#20 - For pollinating certain crops such as cranberries,

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[kithly]

Here is my explanation for this question. Is this correct?

> I noticed the stim doesn't mention the ratio of species/square footage that they visit. So I interpreted the last sentence as meaning: maybe both bees visit 5 species per 1 square meter, so their ratio of species:range is equivalent, but it's just that honeybees visit 2 square meters whereas bumblebees visit only one. I assumed that the time it took for them to cover this # of species and range is irrelevant.

A) This says that if a honeybee visits a wider variety of plant species compared to bumblebees (which we know they do, as directly stated), the honeybee will be less efficient than the bumblebee at pollinating ANY ONE of those species. Not true. We only know this is the case for cranberries, but we don't know which plants the honeybee may be more efficient at pollinating with within their "range".

B) This is lightly supported and most safe. The number of plant species visited by the bee (we know honeybees visit an absolute # more) has some effect on the efficiency with which to pollinate cranberries. Maybe cranberries are a special kind of species that require the bee to not have any trace of other species' pollen on the bees' bodies in order for them to be pollinated. Maybe their pollen must be more "pure" in order to be efficient, so bumblebees are suited for the task.

C) This is completely contradicted by the argument: says the broader the area, the fewer the species, but we know that the opposite is actually true.

D) We don't know anything about the concentration of cranberries/or the concentration of species in general. We only know information about the bees themselves and their species/distribution range. We can't say anything about the likelihood of bumblebees vs honeybees visiting cranberries.

E) We don't know that maybe honeybees actually have an extremely high likelihood of visiting cranberries (ties in with (D)); maybe cranberries are distributed over a wide range and take up 90% of a forest. So the honeybee may technically visit all the 11 species in a forest, 10 of which comprise only a 1% chance of being visited, but the chance of visiting cranberries is still much much higher. Whereas for bumblebees, maybe they only visit a bush (as opposed to a forest) that has 2 species within it, cranberries and blueberries. In that tiny bush, there is a 1% chance of encountering cranberries and 99% of encountering blueberries.

[Brook Miscoski]

Kithly,

The only critique I would make of your explanation is that it could be more efficient. However, I know that writing an idea out is a different process than real-time test taking. So maybe you were more efficient on the test.

Me:

Stimulus: Okay, less range and less species is more efficient for cranberry pollination.

(A) Stimulus only about cranberries. Wrong.
(B) That's what the stimulus says. Right.
(C) Contradictory. Wrong.
(D) Stimulus not about concentration of plants. Wrong.
(E) Stimulus not about Farmer A's crop versus Farmer B's crop. Wrong. It might also contradict the stimulus (your %s analysis is getting there), but I already crossed it out.

So I would say that your reasons are solid, and if you are looking for improvement on a question like this, you are going to find it in becoming more efficient with contenders and losers.

[cecilia]

Question on E:


If I said "a given orchid species," would that mean *all*/any orchid species, as in this answer choice?

Just having a bit of trouble ruling out (E). Is it because we weren't given any information on the *frequency* of visits, nor were we given any kind of data on the relationship between frequency of visits and efficiency at pollination?

Is (E) just too extreme??

Thank you in advance....

[KelseyWoods]

Hi Cecilia!

I'm not totally sure I follow your question about orchid species, but let me see if I can try to clear up answer choice (E) for you.

"A given bee species" does NOT mean the same thing as "any/all bee species." "A given bee species" refers to a specific species of bees. For example, bumblebees or honeybees. So basically answer choice (E) is saying that if a specific bee species (such as bumblebees) is more likely to visit one or more plants in a given cranberry crop, then that species (bumblebees) would be more efficient at pollinating that crop (as compared to other species, like honeybees, which might not be as likely to visit one or more plants in that crop).

Answer choice (E) ends up being incorrect because the stimulus is about visiting only a few plant species, not a few individual plants. So it's not about the frequency of visiting individual plants, but about the total number of plant species visited.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[cecilia]

Thanks Kelsey for your response.

One follow up:
Looking at this answer chocie again, i feel like there is something further wrong it. EVEN IF we correct for the language to "one of more plant SPECIES" and not just "one or more plants", wouldn't (E) still be wrong on the basis of the proportional relationship it attempts to foist onto the stimulus ["the greater the likelihood...the more efficient"]????

[Adam Tyson]

In short, cecilia, yes!

My take on E was less formulaic. I looked at it and thought to myself "it's entirely possible that every honeybee visits at least one cranberry plant, even though it will range farther and visit many other plant types than bumblebees. It could be 100% likely that honeybees will visit them." But the stimulus says bumblebees are more efficient. Answer E potentially conflicts with that claim, and so it is not supported. The proportional relationship between "likely to visit" and "efficiency" isn't supported. Good work!

[gwlsathelp]

I'm still not quite grasping why B is correct over D. Could someone elaborate further? I see that bumblebees prefer a smaller variety of flowers in a smaller space, so it makes sense that if the bumblebee is more efficient, then the cranberries would have more qualities that the bumblebee likes. Is D wrong because it extrapolates upon an example used in the conclusion to further the conclusion?

[Adam Tyson]

Answer D, if true, would strengthen the argument, gwlsathelp, but the problem is that this is a Most Strongly Supported question and not a Strengthen. We need the stimulus to support the answer and not the other way around! D may be attractive because it would help the argument, but there is actually no evidence in the stimulus that it is true. For all we know, based on these facts, cranberries could be ubiquitous, found in every ecosystem and spread out throughout them all, not concentrated in any way!

I had the same issue with answer A: it would, if true, appear to help the argument, but it isn't well supported because we only know about the impact on cranberries and nothing about any other type of plant.

[lsatquestions]

I was thrown off by the first sentence of the stimulus, which says, "For pollinating certain crops such as cranberries." I selected A as I took that to mean ALL pollinating crops, including cranberries.