PrepTest 101, Section 2, Question 15
The authors of a recent article examined warnings(69 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(7 more words not shown)
- AThere is evidence(10 more words not shown)
- BThe future rate(11 more words not shown)
- CThe rate of(18 more words not shown)
- DForty species and(11 more words not shown)
- EA substantial number(9 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Who is saying there is no evidence? The authors of the recent article. Our author replies, “They are wrong.” We need to keep those two sides separate.
The fish figures show which side our author takes. Thirteen North American fish species and subspecies vanished between 1900 and 1950, and twenty-seven vanished after 1950. The author offers that later, larger number as evidence that extinction is picking up. It would make no sense to read those figures as an attempt to reassure us that extinction isn't increasing.
We can still question how far the fish example takes us. What if North American fish face some unusual problem that other animals don't? A trend within that group needn't describe every other group. But that concern is about the strength of the support, not about which side the author is arguing for.
What we’re looking for
For the main-point question, return to the claim being rejected: “no evidence exists.” The author's response is that there is evidence of an accelerating extinction rate. The fish figures are the offered example. We want that overall point, not just a number from the example or a new prediction about the future.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
This is what it means to reject the article's claim that no evidence supports an accelerating rate of extinction. The author supplies the fish figures as evidence in the other direction. Notice how limited the conclusion is: evidence exists. A doesn't need to say that the evidence settles every possible question about all animals.
- B
The author isn't concluding that future rates are impossible to determine from the available evidence. The opening mentions warnings about the next hundred years, but the dispute the author addresses concerns evidence that the rate is accelerating now. B replaces that point with a claim about what the available evidence cannot tell us.
- C
This might be relevant to evaluating how well the fish example represents animals generally. But the author doesn't state a conclusion that the rates run in parallel. The figures about North American fish support the broader objection to “no evidence”; an unstated connection that could help the example is different from the main point being made.
- D
This is one of the supporting facts. If we ask why the author thinks the article is wrong, the account of forty vanished fish species and subspecies is part of the answer. The main point is what those figures are offered to show: that there is evidence of accelerating extinction. Repeating the example's total leaves that point out.
- E
The figures describe fish that have already vanished, not fish currently about to become extinct. E also narrows the conclusion to fish, while the argument uses fish as evidence in a discussion of animal species more broadly. It changes both the time and the scope of the claim.
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