LR Drill Set 12, Question 12
Researcher: The likely cause of recent whale beachings(58 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(7 more words not shown)
- AThere are cases(14 more words not shown)
- BThe whales involved(19 more words not shown)
- CSonar has been(10 more words not shown)
- DSometimes whales become(8 more words not shown)
- EIt is generally(9 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Being near sonar operations is a start. How would sonar actually make a whale swim onto a beach?
The researcher gives us that missing explanation. Heavy sonar exposure can damage the inner ear. Inner-ear damage disorients whales, and disoriented whales can swim too close to shore and beach themselves. The whales in question were healthy except for this damage. Now the location and the physical evidence fit a plausible sequence.
I'm more convinced after hearing that sequence than I was after merely hearing where the whales were found.
But what if something else damaged their ears?
Perhaps another kind of underwater disturbance could do it, or perhaps this damage happens commonly for other reasons. Those are possibilities to investigate, not facts we're adding.
What we’re looking for
For a strengthener, I'd look for a reason to connect the ear damage specifically to these unusual sonar exposures. Ruling out or making other explanations less likely would help. We don't need to show that sonar causes every whale beaching everywhere; the claim concerns these recent North Atlantic cases.
Working the answers
- A
Other whales can beach without intense sonar exposure while sonar still causes this particular cluster. The researcher doesn't claim there is only one cause of every beaching. A gives us no new support for the explanation of the recent cases, and it doesn't identify what caused those cases instead.
- B
Following squid near shore could offer a different explanation of why these whales approached land. We would still need to connect that behavior to the beachings, but it certainly doesn't strengthen the proposed sonar explanation. The fact concerns a possible alternative route toward shore, not evidence for the claimed ear-damage sequence.
- C
Thirty years of sonar use doesn't tell us how intense those past operations were, where they occurred, or what effects they had. The massive operations near these beachings could differ from earlier uses. The duration of sonar use alone doesn't establish the cause of these recent events.
- D
Becoming disoriented far offshore doesn't identify what causes the disorientation. Nor does it show whether those whales later approach land. The researcher has already explained how disorientation can lead to beaching; this answer adds a possible location for disorientation without linking the recent cases more closely to sonar.
- ECorrect
Inner-ear damage is generally very rare, yet every whale in this cluster had it, and the beachings occurred near an exposure that can cause it. That makes the shared damage harder to dismiss as an ordinary background condition unrelated to the sonar operations.
This supports the explanation by making the cluster of damage more significant. It doesn't prove that sonar is the only possible cause, or eliminate every alternative we imagined. It makes the researcher's account more convincing, which is all a strengthener needs to do.
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