#12 - Extinction is inevitable for all biological species.

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Parallel Reasoning. The correct answer choice is (B)

The author concludes that it is pointless to try and protect species that are presently endangered, because all species die out eventually. In other words, if something is bound to be extinct, there is no reason to make an effort to protect it.

The question stem is asking us to parallel the reason why it might be pointless to undertake a certain course of action. Abstractly speaking, the reason should imply the ultimate futility of such an action.

Answer choice (A) The book being sometimes checked out is not tantamount to a guaranteed extinction. Furthermore, "looking" for a book is not the same as making an effort to save it. If the author made the argument that there is no reason to invest in libraries because books are always ultimately destroyed, this would have been a far better answer.

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice. Like biological species, cars are bound to die eventually. In both arguments, this justifies the conclusion that there is no reason to save (or protect) them.

Answer choice (C) The justification for not making an effort to protect something (bridges against earthquakes, in this case) is that earthquakes occur very infrequently. Had the author justified her conclusion by observing that sooner or later bridges are bound to be destroyed anyway, answer choice (C) would have been a much better answer.

Answer choice (D) That traffic jams can occur along any route is not the same as saying that traffic jams are bound to occur along every route. In the stimulus, the author justifies her conclusion by saying that extinction is inevitable. Here, the occurrence of traffic jams is merely a matter of possibility, and therefore the rationale for not making an effort to avoid them is a bit different.

Always make sure to parallel the level of certainty contained in the stimulus with the same degree of certainty in the answer choice.

Answer choice (E) The only thing that makes this answer choice tempting is the thematic overlap between species extinction (stimulus) and plants dying (answer choice). Avoid answer choices that parallel the subject matter but not the reasoning contained in the stimulus. Here, the author is arguing in favor of making an effort to protect plants by planting them in soil that is beneficial to them. Furthermore, as in answer choice (D), we are dealing with a likely outcome, not a certain one.

[mjb514]

I do not understand how B is correct. As the explanation stated, "The author concludes that it is pointless to try and protect species that are presently endangered..." However answer choice B mentions spending money on preventative maintenance. Isn't that and effort to protect and preserve the car for as long as the car can last?

[James Finch]

Hi MJB,

I think you may be misreading the question. It states "The reasoning in the argument above is most closely paralleled by the argument that there is no reason to." If we combine that with the stimulus's general principle that expending resources on maintaining something that will only last a finite amount of time is unjustifiable and answer choice (B), we get:

"There is no reason to spend money on preventive maintenance of a car because no car can last indefinitely"

Which parallels our general principle and the conclusion in the stimulus.

Hope this clears things up!

[Kellyg]

Hi,

I have a similar question to MJB. Since the stimulus mentions specifically "species that are presently endangered", I got rid of answer choice B because it discusses preventative measures, which I took to imply that it was not "presently" in disrepair. I examined the fact that the stimulus discusses presently endangered species and answer choice B discusses a car that is not yet in need of fixing and thought that the logic didn't parallel.

How can I further avoid this confusion? Am I reading into the actual wording too much?

Thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

You might be a little too hung up on the details here, Kellyg, and missing the abstract nature of the argument, which is a crucial part of parallel reasoning. As our explanation pointed out, the abstract nature of the argument in the stimulus is about futility - don't bother trying to accomplish a certain goal, because eventually you will fail. Don't bother trying to protect an endangered species, because it will eventually go extinct anyway. Don't bother maintaining your car, because it will fall apart anyway. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold, Eeyore says not to bother because there is no point, gloom and doom and death and destruction. Very depressing stuff! Don't let the specific details, like a currently endangered species vs a car that may or may not currently be running well, get in the way of understanding that abstraction, and also don't worry about picking answers that are perfect matches in every way. The instructions say to pick the best answer, which is a relative term, not a good answer, which is more absolute. Answer B here is the best of the bunch!

[B52pancho]

I do not see the parallel between the stim and answer B. I DO see that answer B discusses an inevitable demise of a car (like extinction of an animal), however, the way I read these items, the stim basically says there is no use in preventative maintenance because the demise is inevitable but answer B says do preventative maintenance because the demise is inevitable. Does "do something" and "there's no use in doing something" equate to each other?

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi B52Pancho,

One of the biggest struggles students’ have on this question is the abstract nature of it. We love to see arguments in parallel reasoning where we can easily copy a unique argument. We want unusual language in the stimulus, something that will stand out, and be easy to find in a correct answer choice.

That’s not what we have here. Here, we have a stimulus that’s most susceptible to the test of abstraction. The basic structure is that since all species will die out, we shouldn’t bother to do anything about endangered species, even if we could do something to slow the progress of extinction.

To abstract that, we’d say we are looking for something that concludes there’s no point to take steps to avoid an inevitable conclusion, even if we could slow it down.

The problem with your reasoning is that answer choice (B) is saying there is no reason to do preventative maintenance on a car because it will die eventually. We have to look closely to get the “no reason,” because it actually tells us that in the question stem. This question took very close reading. The answer choice made it look like it was saying you SHOULD do car maintenance, when the question stem plus the answer choice says that you SHOULD NOT do car maintenance.

Hope that helps!
Rachael