#1 - Backyard gardeners who want to increase the yields of

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Assumption—FIB. The correct answer choice is (C)

The author begins this opening stimulus with some advice for backyard gardeners: if they want to increase the output of their potato plants, they should grow stinging nettles nearby; these attract helpful insects, which kill many different types of insects that are harmful to potatoes. In the last sentence of the stimulus, the author concedes that another by-product of this strategy is the attraction of aphids, some types of which are harmful to potato plants.

Regardless, though, the author says, the detriment associated with some aphids shouldn’t be a problem; for some reason, there is no contradiction in the author’s recommendation that stinging nettles, should be planted nearby to help to increase the yield of the potato plants, despite the fact that they can attract some types of aphids.

The stimulus ends with a blank to fill in—a clear cue to prephrase the answer: try to predict the answer to the question before looking at the choices provided. So, if some aphids are harmful to potato plants, why shouldn’t that be a problem in this case? While some aphids can harm potato plants, perhaps the types that are drawn to stinging nettles are not harmful, or maybe the helpful insects eat the aphids; the correct answer choice will provide some reason why the aphids in this
case will not cause the harm that one might normally expect to result from attracting them to potato plants. In short: it will give a reason why the fact that aphids are attracted and sometimes harmful "doesn't contradict the recommendation" to plant stinging nettles!

Answer choice (A): While ease of care and of cultivation are certainly fine selling points for the planting of stinging nettles, this choice can be ruled out, because it does not explain how it is possible that it can be a good recommendation to attract aphids, some of which are harmful to potato plants.

Answer choice (B): Whether the attracted aphids would damage the stinging nettles is irrelevant, because the main concern here is for the safety of the potato plants, and the question of why stinging nettles should be planted near potato plants, even though they attract aphids, and some types of aphids are destructive to the potato plant.

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice. If the aphids that are attracted to stinging nettles are harmless to potato plants, then this would provide a reasonable explanation as to why the stinging nettles are a good recommendation, notwithstanding the fact that some aphid types can harm the potato plants.

If you're still unsure, trying negating it and weighing the effect: some types of aphids stinging nettles attract DO damage potato plants...well if that's true then the author's recommendation makes very little sense (would be contradicted, as it were) and thus we have our right answer!

Answer choice (D): This choice basically provides that other organisms are more harmful to potato plants than insect pests. This does not explain how it is a good recommendation to plant stinging nettles near potato plants in an effort to attract aphids, despite the fact that some aphids are harmful to potato plants.

Answer choice (E): The fact that most aphids are even more harmful to other plants does not change the fact that some species harm potato plants—even if the aphids’ harm to potato plants is less devastating than their harm to other types of flora, so this choice does not explain why the attraction of aphids does not contradict the advice to gardeners. Since this answer does not logically complete the last sentence of the stimulus, it cannot be the right choice.

[az305203]

The test scoring on the Self-Study site has this question mislabeled as an Assumption-FIB

[Jon Denning]

Hey az305203 - nice work picking up on that!

This to me is a beautiful, albeit slightly annoying haha, example of how Assumption and Must Be True questions and answer choices are very often identical, in that both serve as something that can be known with confidence from the stimulus alone. In Must it tends to be an inference that takes the next step, while in Assumption it tends to either be an element to connect stimulus pieces or to deny some potential harm...but in both cases the answer still serves as an idea that the stimulus guarantees. Or put another way: an idea you can confidently say the author would agree with.

We have a blog post on this concept here if interested: https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid-28 ... edfellows/

I bring that up for two reasons: (1) because I think it's a really powerful way of attacking assumption questions that a lot of people never seize on (treating them like Must and evaluating answers accordingly), so I hope that helps if that's a question type that sometimes gives you trouble!; and (2) to note that from a purely conceptual standpoint the classification here is both slippery and ultimately irrelevant. That's a weird thing to say, I know, since we (rightfully) make such a big deal out of correctly identifying and reacting to question types, but in this case you could tackle it as Must or Assumption and be entirely fine

All that said, in my opinion this is more Assumption than Must (meaning the scoring system is right and the post above will be edited), and I'll tell you why: the blank is prefaced with the word "because," meaning it's looking for an unstated (hence the blank) premise. That's classic Assumption, rather than a more traditional inference/conclusion which is how a Must answer tends to appear.

So again I'll change the designation/explanation above to reflect that!

Big takeaway: don't get hung up on the difference between the two types here since it's so middling, but rather focus on their similarities and what you'll find is you can answer this question, and truly ANY Assumption question, with far greater ease! I hope that helps!

[az305203]

Hey az305203 - nice work picking up on that!

This to me is a beautiful, albeit slightly annoying haha, example of how Assumption and Must Be True questions and answer choices are very often identical, in that both serve as something that can be known with confidence from the stimulus alone. In Must it tends to be an inference that takes the next step, while in Assumption it tends to either be an element to connect stimulus pieces or to deny some potential harm...but in both cases the answer still serves as an idea that the stimulus guarantees. Or put another way: an idea you can confidently say the author would agree with.

We have a blog post on this concept here if interested: https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid-28 ... edfellows/

I bring that up for two reasons: (1) because I think it's a really powerful way of attacking assumption questions that a lot of people never seize on (treating them like Must and evaluating answers accordingly), so I hope that helps if that's a question type that sometimes gives you trouble!; and (2) to note that from a purely conceptual standpoint the classification here is both slippery and ultimately irrelevant. That's a weird thing to say, I know, since we (rightfully) make such a big deal out of correctly identifying and reacting to question types, but in this case you could tackle it as Must or Assumption and be entirely fine

All that said, in my opinion this is more Assumption than Must (meaning the scoring system is right and the post above will be edited), and I'll tell you why: the blank is prefaced with the word "because," meaning it's looking for an unstated (hence the blank) premise. That's classic Assumption, rather than a more traditional inference/conclusion which is how a Must answer tends to appear.

So again I'll change the designation/explanation above to reflect that!

Big takeaway: don't get hung up on the difference between the two types here since it's so middling, but rather focus on their similarities and what you'll find is you can answer this question, and truly ANY Assumption question, with far greater ease! I hope that helps!

That was very interesting and I hadn't looked at it that way, I had identified it as a Must! I was doing a breakdown of my performance to see what question types I might be struggling with, so I was reading the explanations here on the discussion and got confused when it didn't match. Didn't think to consider the similarities there! Thanks!!