PrepTest 103, Section 3, Question 8
Grasses and woody plants are planted on dirt(75 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(8 more words not shown)
- ATwo events that(10 more words not shown)
- BA highly general(10 more words not shown)
- CThe conclusion is(16 more words not shown)
- DOne possible solution(14 more words not shown)
- EAn action that(17 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Why leave the clippings there?
The plants are supposed to hold the embankment together. But mowing leaves piles that smother the woody plants and rot their roots. At that point, I would be thinking about removing the clippings or changing the mowing practice. We need to stop damaging the very roots that prevent erosion.
Then we get a second route to damage: the clippings attract rodents, which burrow into the dirt and damage the roots. So the piles create two problems—smothering the plants directly and attracting animals that damage them.
Bringing in predators addresses the rodents. Even if the predators eliminate every rodent, who removes the piles smothering the plants? That first source of root damage remains.
What we’re looking for
For the flaw question, that's the missing piece. The author acts as though removing one cause will prevent the whole problem. We can accept that rodents cause damage and that predators can remove them while still doubting the promised end to erosion.
Working the answers
- A
The passage gives us causal claims: the clippings smother the plants, cause the roots to rot, and attract rodents that damage them. The author isn't merely observing two events together and inferring that one caused the other. Our objection accepts the stated causes and asks what the proposed fix leaves behind.
- B
We aren't given a limited sample and told to extend its results to all embankments. B needs a problem with the representativeness of the facts, but the facts already identify the neglected cause. Even if these facts describe the embankments perfectly, removing the rodents would leave the smothering unresolved.
- C
None of the supporting facts already says that bringing in predators will prevent erosion. That is a new conclusion drawn from the account of root damage. The problem is that the proposal addresses only part of that account, not that it merely repeats a premise.
- D
The author says bringing in predators will solve the problem, not that it is the only possible way to solve it. The argument could allow other methods too. We are challenging whether this method is enough, not whether every other method must fail.
- ECorrect
Rodent damage is one cause; clippings smothering the plants and rotting their roots is another. Predators would eliminate the first without addressing the second. The conclusion treats removing the rodents as enough to prevent erosion even though the passage has already given us a separate way the protective roots can be destroyed.
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