#20 - In Brazil, side-by-side comparisons of Africanized

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

WeakenX. The correct answer choice is (C)

This is a very simple and straightforward stimulus. The conclusion is in the last sentence, that honey production will not decline even if Africanized bees displace local bees in the US. And it is based on the premise that in Brazil a comparison between Africanized bees and local bees has shown the Africanized bees to be better honey producers. This is an EXCEPT Weaken question and so we will be looking for answer choice that does not weaken the conclusion.

Answer Choice (A): This weakens the conclusion because it makes the premise in the stimulus invalid. If native Brazilian bees are different than bees used most frequently used in the US, no meaningful comparison can be made between the two. We do not know if the study done with Brazilian bees can be applied to US bees.

Answer Choice (B): This also weakens the conclusion. If Africanized bees complicate honey production there is reason to believe that honey production may decline if native US bees are displaced.

Answer Choice (C): This is the correct answer choice. Here we are told that certain ornamental trees will not be pollinated. However, this most likely will not have any sort of effect on commercial honey production and so it does not weaken the conclusion in the stimulus.

Answer Choice (D): If a significant proportion of commercial honey production comes from hobbyists and these hobbyists will abandon bee keeping with Africanized bees, it can be assumed that their contribution to commercial honey production will drop.

Answer Choice (E): Like (A) this weakens the conclusion by invalidating the premise used to support it. If the study was biased in favor of the Africanized bees then its results cannot be relied upon.

[olafimihan.k]

Hello!

How does answer choice A weaken the conclusion presented in the stimulus? If the Brazilian bees already had no affect on the commercial beekeeping industry in the U.S. then the introduction of Africanized honeybees wouldn't really effect it, would it?

[Eric Ockert]

Hi!

The stimulus tells us that the Africanized bees are better producers to the native Brazilian honeybees. But if answer choice (A) is true, and the honeybees used in the United States are not the same variety as the native Brazilian honeybees, then the Africanized honeybees would not necessarily be better producers than current U.S. honeybees. That would be a big problem for this argument.

[sdb606]

The issue I had with C is that the stimulus conclusion is not that domestic commercial honey production will not decline but rather that there is no need to FEAR a decline. If honey production declining leads to less ornamental tree pollination, then the growers of those trees would certainly have reason to fear a decline which would weaken the argument.

What's wrong with this reasoning?

[Jeremy Press]

Hi sdb,

The problem with your reasoning is that answer choice C isn't saying that declining honey production would lead to ornamental trees declining. Rather, it's saying that swapping in the Africanized bees would lead to ornamental trees declining. We can't assume (because there's no other information to make that assumption) that swapping in the Africanized bees would lead to declining honey production. So there just isn't any connection in answer choice C to the specific issue of declining honey production.

I hope this helps!

[KG!]

Hi sdb,

The problem with your reasoning is that answer choice C isn't saying that declining honey production would lead to ornamental trees declining. Rather, it's saying that swapping in the Africanized bees would lead to ornamental trees declining. We can't assume (because there's no other information to make that assumption) that swapping in the Africanized bees would lead to declining honey production. So there just isn't any connection in answer choice C to the specific issue of declining honey production.

I hope this helps!

And see that's my issue because let's say there was another issue choice that didn't weaken this. we would make an argument as to why this does. How can we not assume that declining pollination of a particular treee type wouldn't lead to declining commercial honey production. I mean understand it's a stretch, but there's plenty of terrible/subtle weakeners on the LSAT, so why isn't this one of them.

[Jeremy Press]

Hey KG,

Let me put it to you this way: what does the effectiveness of certain ornamental trees' pollination have to do with honey production? Do we know? If we don't, there's really no way to connect this answer to the conclusion. We don't even know that the tree not getting pollinated as effectively would mean the bee wouldn't get nectar from it (or that the bee couldn't get plenty of nectar from other sources). Whereas all the other answers have a direct mention of, or very close connection to, honey production (it's either directly mentioned, or closely related to something mentioned in the answer, like foraging in answer choice E).

We can only evaluate the answers that are given to us in the context of a given question, and, compared to the other answers in this set, C is the answer that is clearly the least connected to the conclusion. So that's all we need to worry about (and try not to worry too much about "Platonically ideal" answers ).

[KG!]

Hey KG,

Let me put it to you this way: what does the effectiveness of certain ornamental trees' pollination have to do with honey production? Do we know? If we don't, there's really no way to connect this answer to the conclusion. We don't even know that the tree not getting pollinated as effectively would mean the bee wouldn't get nectar from it (or that the bee couldn't get plenty of nectar from other sources). Whereas all the other answers have a direct mention of, or very close connection to, honey production (it's either directly mentioned, or closely related to something mentioned in the answer, like foraging in answer choice E).

We can only evaluate the answers that are given to us in the context of a given question, and, compared to the other answers in this set, C is the answer that is clearly the least connected to the conclusion. So that's all we need to worry about (and try not to worry too much about "Platonically ideal" answers ).

Thanks Jeremy, I'll take another crack at this question, but I'm still confused a bit!