#8 - For all species of higher animals, reproduction

[OneSeventy2019]

Hello,

I got this question correct but would like to validate the process by which I eliminated the other options, which I identified:

(A) - Stimulus mentions a rare salamander species, not all salamander species so the stimulus does not preclude the truthfulness of this option.
(B) - (CORRECT RESPONSE) - This contradicts the first sentence of the stimulus.
(C) - "Significant" is vague; one might reasonably guess that there are only a "few" female-only species but "significant" could be, for example, only 10-12.
(D) - Last sentence of prompt says that all female species are less adaptive than species with both male and female members (this is relative); the fact that some male and female species are "not very adaptive" does not contradict the stimulus.
(E) - This is also irrelevant; stimulus talks about certain types of species (all female vs. male and female) having genetic codes more aligned to a single parent but says nothing about particular offspring within a species.

Appreciate you feedback. Thanks!

[Dave Killoran]

Yes, looks good. Well done!

[hbaezh]

Wouldnt answer D contradict the stimulus since it goes against what the stimulus says that having a male and female makes a species more adaptive than one that only contains genetic material from an all-female reproduction?
Thus, making D the ODD odd one out?

I found this stimulus quite confusing, not so much in the topic but the wording

[Jeremy Press]

Hi hbaezh,

Answer choice D doesn't contradict the stimulus because the stimulus talks in relative/comparative terms, "making the species less adaptive than species containing both male and female members," whereas answer choice D talks in absolute terms, "not very adaptive." Answer choice D could be true (certain species with both male and female members might not be very adaptive), while it could still also be true that all-female species would be even less adaptive (even less than "not very adaptive").

Think about a simple example of the same idea: "I am not very fast. Nevertheless, my brother (who is extremely slow) is still slower than me." Those two statements could be consistent, in just the same way that answer choice D could be consistent with the stimulus.

I hope this helps!

[jrschultz14]

Hi! I got this correct, but did spend a few extra seconds on it because in my mind, B isn't definitively a must be false. The stimulus speaks only of "reproduction" and not of existence, which AC B refers to.

Could there not be a scenario, where all of the females in a species died, thus leaving only male members, who do not produce eggs? The species would effectively be "extinct-in-waiting," but would still exist for the duration of the remaining males' lives.

Any thoughts would be super helpful! I want to be nit-picky on LSAT questions, because it usually lets me eliminate incorrect ACs, so am I just going to far here? AC B is clearly the best of worse options, but in general, most LSAT questions seem more tightly-written than this -- especially when the question is a definitive MBF.

[evelineliu]

Hi JR,

For this question's answer choices, consider the species in general at any point in time, not at a specific time period of "extinct-in-waiting." We know from the stimulus that all species of higher animals require egg production. (B) says there's a species with no egg production, so that cannot be true.

Hope that makes sense!
Eveline